This is what it looked like.
Little spots of mold on my yummy bread. Apparently bread can have blue, black, or green mold as well as other colors. Mold is not a plant or an animal, but a third type of living being that feeds off of the bread as its source of nutrient. Technically, one of the ingredients, yeast, is also a fungi.
I decided to go ahead and eat my toast, but I cut off the top part of the bread, thinking it was fine. After reading that the spores can reach deeper into the bread, I decided to throw away the remaining part of the loaf and be on the safe side concerning my health. The USDA recommends not cutting off the mold and eating the rest of the bread anyway.
This incident encouraged me to clean through my fridge, even though I have been keeping a much better track of when my food goes bad. This is what else I found.
Can you guess what this is?
Nope, it is not meat, it is strawberry jam. Full of mold. It was opened in June and made with no preservatives. The sugar provides a good nutrient source for the mold. The USDA recommends throwing out any jam that has mold on it instead of eating around it.
Here is the side view:
I also made a vegetable medley and put in the freezer back in the first week of the semester, so 2 months ago. I have not been enticed to eat it as it was not amazing to begin with; it is freezer burned with the potential for mold.
So why am I so concerned with mold? Some people think it is not that harmful and you should just eat around it. I do not plan to make myself sick when there is a sign there that the food is not ok. I am also allergic to penicillin, a type of mold that can grow on some food. Combined with environmental allergies, for me it is just not a good idea to chance it.
Sources for further reading:
USDA - Molds on Food: Are they Dangerous?
Is it safe to eat that moldy bread?
Bread Mold Causes
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