Joined
·
11,250 Posts
Article on BBC on what is safe and what is not. Good basic info.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701768
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701768
moldy food
1 - 17 of 17 Posts
Joined
·
5,081 Posts
Interesting article, lol, and actually some good advice, but I doubt anyone will ever convince the germaphobes who now throw away perfectly good food just because it's past its "best used by" date! Or even worse, BEFORE that day, argh!
My DIL does this, and it makes me crazy, lol. She won't eat anything that is within a week PRIOR to its best used date and throws it out unopened! I've even tried to get her to donate it to a food pantry or give it to friends or neighbors but she says she's not going to "poison" them either!
I don't deliberately eat bread with mold on it, but there have been occasions where I ate some and then discovered there was mold on what was left in the bag, so there probably was on what I ate too, and I didn't get sick. I also grew up cutting the mold off hard cheeses with no issues, although most cheese doesn't last that long around here now, lol!
I remember my grandma getting a ham or some bacon out of the smokehouse and cutting off the moldy portion, then slicing off what she wanted and putting the rest back in the smokehouse for the next time. All the country people did that when I was growing up. If fruits or vegetables had a bad spot, they cut it off and added it to the animals' feed or the compost pile and then used the rest of it. Nothing went to waste, ever.
While I wouldn't expect people in this day and age to eat such things, I think it's ridiculous the amount of perfectly good food that's wasted due to arbitrary dates on packages, throwing out a whole vegetable because of one small blemish or the food that's thrown away just because they didn't get around to cooking or using it before it went bad...especially when there's such an issue with food shortages, droughts and starving people!
And don't even get me started on the amount of food thrown out by stores and restaurants that could be feeding some of the hungry! We could and SHOULD be doing much better!!!
My DIL does this, and it makes me crazy, lol. She won't eat anything that is within a week PRIOR to its best used date and throws it out unopened! I've even tried to get her to donate it to a food pantry or give it to friends or neighbors but she says she's not going to "poison" them either!
I don't deliberately eat bread with mold on it, but there have been occasions where I ate some and then discovered there was mold on what was left in the bag, so there probably was on what I ate too, and I didn't get sick. I also grew up cutting the mold off hard cheeses with no issues, although most cheese doesn't last that long around here now, lol!
I remember my grandma getting a ham or some bacon out of the smokehouse and cutting off the moldy portion, then slicing off what she wanted and putting the rest back in the smokehouse for the next time. All the country people did that when I was growing up. If fruits or vegetables had a bad spot, they cut it off and added it to the animals' feed or the compost pile and then used the rest of it. Nothing went to waste, ever.
While I wouldn't expect people in this day and age to eat such things, I think it's ridiculous the amount of perfectly good food that's wasted due to arbitrary dates on packages, throwing out a whole vegetable because of one small blemish or the food that's thrown away just because they didn't get around to cooking or using it before it went bad...especially when there's such an issue with food shortages, droughts and starving people!
And don't even get me started on the amount of food thrown out by stores and restaurants that could be feeding some of the hungry! We could and SHOULD be doing much better!!!
Joined
·
3,363 Posts
My sister is horrible about throwing out food. I had some bananas I was waiting on to make banana bread with and she threw them out. They were just starting to turn brown! She said they were starting to get soft and she'd just go buy me some new bananas to make the bread with... I told her for now on she isn't allowed to throw out any food at my house, even if it's crawling with bugs! The kids are watching her for me.
Joined
·
2,385 Posts
The best banana cake is made with very squishy brown bananas! Tha's what my Mema always used, and it was GOOOOD cake.
Joined
·
984 Posts
I freeze the bananas in their skin if they are getting overripe. When I have three or four (depending on your recipe) just defrost and make banana bread.
She can do what she wants at her house, even though it's wasteful and silly, imo, but at your house? Fingies off. I have a sister something like that. She also bags EVERYTHING in tiny little zip bags even if she's going to then put it in a plastic box. (She LOVES Tupperware. The boxes are labeled as to contents and stacked alphabetically.) She's also the one who "has no money". Nope. She spent it on food to throw away, and plastic to keep it in in the meantime.
Joined
·
3,363 Posts
That's when they are sweetest. Hubby loves banana bread.
Joined
·
11,250 Posts
Did you give any to a cat?
Joined
·
5,081 Posts
Too cute Oggie! My sister loved Roquefort dressing her entire life, but one time I made a different kind of salad that had crumbled blue cheese over the top...she freaked out at the mold and wouldn't eat it, ROFL!
There's good mold, bad mold, and indifferent mold, and the key is knowing the difference.
For cheese, white cheese mold can be just washed off hard cheese -- it was probably introduced to the cheese culture originally and has been there all along, but "bloomed" when the cheese was exposed to air. Black mold is a bit more sketchy, because depending on which mold it is, it can be a carcinogen. I personally cut a large margin out around black mold but I have heard experts I respect advocate for chucking the entire affected cheese, if you're talking a pound sized store bought cheese.
I've fermented veggies for years -- and had an ex who would gag if he even saw the crock of sauerkraut on the counter. Sometimes, there was a layer of "indifferent" mold on the surface that I usually scooped off and chucked out to the chickens when checking on the progress of the kraut a few times a week. The mold wasn't really hurting anything in small amounts, but in large quantities it could affect the PH of the kraut and therefore allow bad bacteria to grow, so I remove it. He swore it smelled putrid and he thought he could smell it even when it was all sealed up. (The man also swore he hated elk meat, but happily consumed the "roast beef" at a neighborhood pot luck with complete oblivion ... LOL.)
Learning to make dairy products has been an education for me, however, because it breaks so many of the "food safety" rules that have always been ingrained in m. Leaving milk out on the counter at room temperature to become buttermilk somehow just feels wrong. And then when something goes the slightest bit wrong (as in, unexpected results), it takes a bit of psyching myself up to taste the results to find out if they're okay or not.
"Unexpected results" lately has been sour cream with the consistency and taste of cream cheese. I think the culture picked up a new bug ...This is not actually a problem once I figured out I'd accidentally made cream cheese, because I like cream cheese. Finding cream cheese in a jar when I was expecting sour cream, however, definitely gave me pause.
ETA: A neighbor of ours insists our farm fresh eggs taste "nasty." She's one of those people who are a bit ... nervous ... about food. Everyone else likes them, to the point that we're talking about putting up a fridge on our porch eventually for honor system egg sales. (The chickens have been on pasture since summer, so the egg yolks are neon orange rather than store-bought yellow.) Sometimes, you can only shake your head at people's perceptions and assumptions ...
For cheese, white cheese mold can be just washed off hard cheese -- it was probably introduced to the cheese culture originally and has been there all along, but "bloomed" when the cheese was exposed to air. Black mold is a bit more sketchy, because depending on which mold it is, it can be a carcinogen. I personally cut a large margin out around black mold but I have heard experts I respect advocate for chucking the entire affected cheese, if you're talking a pound sized store bought cheese.
I've fermented veggies for years -- and had an ex who would gag if he even saw the crock of sauerkraut on the counter. Sometimes, there was a layer of "indifferent" mold on the surface that I usually scooped off and chucked out to the chickens when checking on the progress of the kraut a few times a week. The mold wasn't really hurting anything in small amounts, but in large quantities it could affect the PH of the kraut and therefore allow bad bacteria to grow, so I remove it. He swore it smelled putrid and he thought he could smell it even when it was all sealed up. (The man also swore he hated elk meat, but happily consumed the "roast beef" at a neighborhood pot luck with complete oblivion ... LOL.)
Learning to make dairy products has been an education for me, however, because it breaks so many of the "food safety" rules that have always been ingrained in m. Leaving milk out on the counter at room temperature to become buttermilk somehow just feels wrong. And then when something goes the slightest bit wrong (as in, unexpected results), it takes a bit of psyching myself up to taste the results to find out if they're okay or not.
"Unexpected results" lately has been sour cream with the consistency and taste of cream cheese. I think the culture picked up a new bug ...This is not actually a problem once I figured out I'd accidentally made cream cheese, because I like cream cheese. Finding cream cheese in a jar when I was expecting sour cream, however, definitely gave me pause.
ETA: A neighbor of ours insists our farm fresh eggs taste "nasty." She's one of those people who are a bit ... nervous ... about food. Everyone else likes them, to the point that we're talking about putting up a fridge on our porch eventually for honor system egg sales. (The chickens have been on pasture since summer, so the egg yolks are neon orange rather than store-bought yellow.) Sometimes, you can only shake your head at people's perceptions and assumptions ...
Joined
·
11,250 Posts
It bears repeating that people experience food and tastes differently, their guts react differently, and their immune systems react differently. If someone notes that eggs taste "nasty" and it is a situation where they don't know the egg source, those eggs very well could taste nasty to them, perhaps based on some bug the chicken ate (stink bug?). Some vegans can supposedly "smell" if a person is a meat eater. I tend to treat food idiosyncrasies as factual - especially in cats.
Joined
·
1,778 Posts
Ah, I love re-heated day old pasta! Tastes almost better than fresh!
Most things I use even past an expiration date, but if it smells or looks off, it's tossed.
Many cheeses I just toss the moldy section. Jams with mold or sauces with a floating island of mold, the mold is tossed and the rest fed to the pigs. No such thing as an egg too old to eat! Unless it stinks or is a weird color.
I got my pigs back because we end up not using so much food, some the dogs could eat, rest I needed my pigs to eat it. Don't have chickens anymore, 2 pigs is easier than a flock of chickens.
People have different scents based on what they eat, food or drugs. Meat animals can also taste different based on what they lived off of. Chicken eggs are darker and more rich when fed and raised more naturally. But I never had any animal eat stinkbugs, so not sure the eggs can taste bad or not from eating them...hmmm
Most things I use even past an expiration date, but if it smells or looks off, it's tossed.
Many cheeses I just toss the moldy section. Jams with mold or sauces with a floating island of mold, the mold is tossed and the rest fed to the pigs. No such thing as an egg too old to eat! Unless it stinks or is a weird color.
I got my pigs back because we end up not using so much food, some the dogs could eat, rest I needed my pigs to eat it. Don't have chickens anymore, 2 pigs is easier than a flock of chickens.
People have different scents based on what they eat, food or drugs. Meat animals can also taste different based on what they lived off of. Chicken eggs are darker and more rich when fed and raised more naturally. But I never had any animal eat stinkbugs, so not sure the eggs can taste bad or not from eating them...hmmm
1 - 17 of 17 Posts
Join the discussion
Join now to ask and comment!