The risks of eliminating mold in a food and eating the rest – 25/02/2019

Surely many times you have done it. Before a bread or jam with a little mold, before you start the whole product, you removed the rotten part and you ate the rest. Precisely to defend this way of proceeding, British Prime Minister Theresa May caused a sensation.

May confessed to her ministers that she was not throwing a jar of moldy jam. His words, delivered during a cabinet discussion on reducing food waste, opened the question: Is it safe to take advantage of certain foods to eliminate this mold?

"We recommend not eating foods that are obviously rotten or moldy because of potential risks," they told the Food Standards Authority (FSA). They added that "although it is possible that the elimination of mold and a significant amount of the surrounding product can eliminate the hidden toxins present, nothing guarantees that this will eliminate them all"

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In contrast, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has established a list of foods that can be consumed once the mold is eliminated. According to this information, those that are soft or have a high moisture content should be discarded, while those that are firm and dry could be consumed by removing the contaminated layers. So, you should not eat jams, nuts, red berries, soft cheeses in which the mussels are not part of the technological process, bread and bills, dairy products, pasta, meat. But dried meat products, such as hard cheese or solid fruits and vegetables, would be suitable once the moldy part was removed.

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What is true then? Are there foods that can be eaten even when they are moldy, simply by removing the top mold? "It's better to throw them, some molds produce dangerous mycotoxins. It's not enough to retire, if a food has a lot of mold on the surface, it will surely have penetrated deeply, "says Silvia Romero, dietitian nutritionist, author of the blog Equilibra's.

"The problem of molds is not in the visible part, but in mycotoxins, toxic substances produced by certain fungi (Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium). Mushroom spores are everywhere. Fungi have the ability to multiply in foods with very low water activity (water activity measures the amount of water available for the microorganisms to develop their metabolic activity), in which other microorganisms can not not develop. They seem to contaminate cereals, nuts, dehydrated fruits, seeds, "says Beatriz Robles, dietitian-nutritionist and food technologist.

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What can produce the ingestion of these fungal spores? "Ingesting mold alone does not cause problems in the body, but the toxin it can produce can cause long-term problems in the body: fungal toxins are the cause chronic poisoning mainlywhich means that the toxin accumulates in the body and causes side effects over time and its accumulation. There are also acute intoxications of fungal origin such as the famous Amanita Muscariawhich causes side effects shortly after ingestion. "The effects that these toxins can cause in our body are varied, nephropathy, hepatitis, ergotism, including esophageal cancer", Says Lluís Riera, director of the Saia food safety consultancy firm in Barcelona.

Indeed, according to Robles, "Mycotoxins can cause acute gastrointestinal symptoms, but they are also considered carcinogenic and mutagenic. They are very stable and support the processing and cooking temperatures. It is necessary to avoid carrying food in the nostrils because we can suck the spores. "

Indeed, IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) considers some mycotoxins and "have been clbadified as carcinogens, especially aflatoxin B1 considered a level 1 carcinogen in the IARC table". with the clbadification 2B which indicates that they can possibly be carcinogenic ", details Riera.

There are exceptions to this: the molds used to make certain foods are not dangerous, in a controlled and stable mannerlike soft cheeses ripened by molds such as camembert or brie, blue cheeses like roquefort or cabrales, or katsuobushi, smoked and dried tuna typical of Japanese cuisine. As the food technologist explains, "we always use controlled species and strains that do not produce mycotoxins".

With respect to information provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), "there are restrictions in the rule, as removal of the contaminated part of the product may result in some of the toxins and it is not clear exactly how much product needs to be eliminated to make sure they have not penetrated, "Beatriz Robles said.

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The conclusion is very clear. "Moldy foods have to be thrown away"said Romero. Sometimes this practice is avoided to avoid wasting food "but if that is done, food security at risk, the approach is not adequate," Robles says. So if you find a bread, a jam or an open mushroom sauce, you will throw all the product in the trash.

© ROSANNA CARCELLER. L & # 39; vanguard.