Questions and Answers, Mold on Food

Questions & Answers - Mold on Food

Question:

Linda, I left an big jar of marinated artichokes which had been opened out of the fridge for about a week, never dreaming that they'd get moldy. When I opened the jar, some mold had superficially covered about half the surface. I took them all out and threw away generously the ones with the mold. Is this mold, outside of looking icky, health threatening? Await your reply with thanks in advance.

Answers:

Photo of mold on bread. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

If ANY food develops a visual mold, dispose of the entire contents of food. Do not remove mold and try to eat the rest of the food. Mold grows downward and we do not know how far it has penetrated the food. Therefore, we can not assume the food is safe to eat.

Mold grows from tiny spores that float around in the air. When some of these spores fall onto a piece of damp food, they grow into mold. The mold feeds itself by producing chemicals that make the food break down and start to rot. As the bread rots, the mold grows.

Molds are microscopic fungi that live on plant or animal matter. No one knows how many species of fungi exist, but estimates range from tens of thousands to perhaps 300,000 or more. Most are filamentous (threadlike) organisms and the production of spores is characteristic of fungi in general. These spores can be transported by air, water, or insects. There are thousands of different kinds of molds. One mold that grows on lemons looks like a blue-green powder. A mold that grows on strawberries is a grayish-white fuzz. A common mold that grows on bread looks like white cottony fuzz at first. If you watch that mold for a few days, it will turn black. The tiny black dots are its spores, which can grow to produce more mold.

An exception is mold on hard cheese. But some cheeses are eaten only after they become moldy! Blue cheese gets its flavor from the veins of blue-green mold in it. When a blue cheese is formed into a wheel, holes are poked through it with thin skewers. Air gets into these holes, and a very special kind of mold grows there as the cheese ripens. If mold develops, cut away one (1) inch on each side of the cheese (throw away) and use the remainder as soon as possible. If mold is found on soft cheese (i.e. cottage cheese, cream cheese) the entire package should be discarded.

Learn more about mold on foods: http://www.madsci.org/FAQs/micro/molds.html

Sources:

From The University of Illinois, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Horticulture Solutions Series.

Science Explorer, published by Owl Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1996 & 1997.

Food Safety Focus, USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline, http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/molds.htm