Many times we take something out of the refrigerator, the pantry, or wherever and we see that it has a normal appearance, but some mold in a concentrated place. That’s when the big question arises, if I remove that piece of mushroom, can I eat it? The answer is not so simple, not even so basic as to say yes or no. Let’s say that the fungus is good and bad depending on the type of food.
How many times have we removed mold from a fruit, bread, vegetable, or even grated cheese and eaten the rest? Well no, that’s very bad, since our health is at stake. The fungi that we see have already penetrated inside the food, facilitating the expansion of bacteria and microbes. But not everything was going to be bad, since there are a series of foods to which we CAN remove that greenish part and continue eating as if we had not seen anything.
Don’t eat moldy food
The problem of molds is not only in the part that is visible and that we remove, but inside it the festival of bacteria has already started a long time ago. Some species of mold emit toxic substances known as mycotoxins that are obviously undetectable by the human eye, but are very harmful, even causing liver problems and even death.
All that food that has fungus, experts recommend rejecting it and throwing it into the organic container. And it is a very common practice in homes, remove the fungus and say “See? It’s okay, you can eat it.” But we are making a very serious mistake that can make that person, child or elderly, have stomach aches, vomiting, diarrhea or worse consequences.
There are thousands of different species of molds and they are found everywhere, since they are part of the colonization and degradation of acidic foods and with little humidity, although they also exist in the refrigerator, only that their birth is slower. This happens in food, and even in water bottles and other utensils such as dirty cutlery, tuppers, grease from the pan, dirty countertop, etc.
The important thing is to clean all the fruit before consuming it, as well as the vegetables, vegetables and others, the bread to keep it safe and eat it fresh as soon as possible. Clean the refrigerator with some frequency using disinfectant products, but do not leave traces or chemical odors that can contaminate the food.
If when you see the food, it looks bad, it is best to throw it away, let’s not risk it or we can spend a very unpleasant night in the emergency room.
Foods that we can eat
There are a few foods that we can eat after removing the area with fungus and mold, they are very little, but they are the only ones approved by the health authorities, all the others, it is best to discard them, as the OCU says.
- Cured ham and sausages: this type of food is normal for mold to grow because they are usually at room temperature and it takes us many days to eat them. What we have to do is scrape the moldy part and eat the rest.
- Hard cheeses: we refer to all those that have low humidity such as gouda, emmental, manchego, etc. We can cut the greenish part more than 2 centimeters around and below the moldy area as a precaution, and eat the rest normally.
- Crispy fruits and vegetables: vegetables and fruits that are firm and hard such as carrots, bell peppers, apples, cabbage, etc. We have to remove the entire area with mold including 2 centimeters more as a precaution, and the rest we can eat perfectly.
Everything that is not included in this short list must be discarded urgently and under no circumstances will we give it to children or the elderly, not even healthy adults. It is disposed of in the organic container or we compost it if we want, but it is not consumed.
