Mold is Good for Cheese (sometimes) But Not When It Comes to Bread, Cake or Jam

Is your bread sprouting green spots? Have some of your strawberries grown fur? Does your cheddar have patches of white?

Welcome to the world of mold, more than 300,000 different little beasties tossing their spore progeny into the air around you, particularly in the kitchen where the warm humid air and multiplicity of surfaces supports their life style.

What you see on top is only a small part of the story. Underneath, the mold is busily putting out thready branches and roots to burrow into food it finds as yummy as you do, sometimes with unpleasant results. Some molds are allergenic; they can make you sneeze or cough which is only one reason why you should never sniff a moldy food to try to tell if it’s a problem. More seriously, a few produce poisonous substances called aflatoxins, potential carcinogens found on foods and feeds such as corn and peanuts. Ever alert to danger, USDA regularly monitors these to remove contaminated items from the animal and human food chain.

On the other hand, some molds are not only safe to eat, they dish up some of your favorite foods. Think Brie and Camembert which have white surface molds. Add Roquefort, blue, Gorgonzola, and Stilton created by the internal blue molds P. roqueforti or Penicillium roqueforti spores. Happily, these molds are both safe and delicious.

How to tell what’s okay and what isn’t? The good news is that USDA has created a general guide which you can find at https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/molds-food-are-they-dangerous

Here are the highlights:

Rule #1: Moldy foods with a high moisture content may be hosting bacteria below the surface where you can’t see them. The list includes cooked leftover meat and poultry, casseroles, and pasta, plus crumbled, shredded, and sliced cheeses, soft cheeses, yogurt, sour cream, jams and jellies, luncheon meats, bacon, or hot dogs. Ditto for dry but porous foods such as Bread and baked goods. Because mold may be hiding beneath the surface, the USDA says to toss the food including the whole loaf, the entire cake (sigh!) and every other bowl, jar, and package on this list.

Rule #2. Fruits and veggies come in two varieties. The soft ones such as cucumbers, peaches, tomatoes fall under the don’t-mess-with moisture rule. But USDA says the firm ones with a dense surface such as cabbage, bell peppers, carrots tell a different story that allows you to dig in after cutting off at least 1 inch around and below a small mold spot, keeping the knife out of the mold itself to prevent cross-contaminate other parts of the produce.

Rule #3. Some foods such as hard salamis and dry cured hams normally come with a surface mold. USDA says scrub it away and enjoy.

Now for the basics. To keep molds out of your kitchen, when shopping start by checking stems and surfaces of fresh produce for spots and bruises. Look through class jars to make sure all is well inside. Empty opened cans of perishable foods into clean storage containers and refrigerate them promptly. Don’t leave perishables out of the refrigerator more than 2 hours, and use leftovers within three to four days so no floating mold spore has a chance to land and flourish.

Then make sure the fridge is clean, the counter spotless, and all towels and dish rags dry as a bone, after which you should keep an eagle eye out for the next almost-inevitable invaders.

At which point, it’s back to Rule #1