Mold
The word “mold” is familiar to each of us, and everyone knows what this thing looks like. But not everyone thought about what it really is and where it comes from in our homes. Now we are going to talk about just that.
Mold is called microscopic fungi that form characteristic raids on the surface of organic bodies, causing food spoilage.
Our Country has always been known for the quality of food, so for most of us it is still mostly not clear – how is it possible to include moldy products in the diet? But mold is also different! Remember, for example, such a significant discovery as penicillin!
Mold begins immediately after the death of the plant and animal organism. Mold first forms, then bacteria. Mold, as a rule, appears where there are favorable conditions for it – mold spores begin to germinate, and they multiply very quickly! If we had a microscope at hand and even a slightly moldy product (for example, cheese), then we would be horrified by looking at it at a multiple increase – the number of mold spores is simply in the billions!
- high humidity
- the temperature in the room is 17 – 30 degrees Celsius.
Mold does not like cleanliness and dry air very much; you should not ventilate the room when it is raining, cold and damp outside. It is also worth noting that mold can also affect frozen foods, this happens infrequently, but still – check them more often. Do not store frozen food for a long time – no more than a month. The processes of rotting and deterioration occur slowly even at the lowest temperature.
As we said above, mold is a special type of fungus. For the first time in the world, scientists in Poland conducted special studies that proved that mold (not visible fungi, but its spores) provokes such a serious blood disease as leukemia. It has also been found that peanuts affected by mold have such a strong concentration of toxins that they can cause cancer. City dwellers spend most of their lives in residential premises, and, as a rule, these premises are closed (whether it be a car, an apartment or an office). That is, we breathe only the air that is in the room. Lung niches are able to filter out most microbes well, but mold spores have their own peculiarity – they pass the respiratory tract unhindered, settle deeply in the lungs and penetrate even into the lung tissue itself. It was also found that in the places where allergy sufferers and asthmatics live, mold was present in 80 cases out of 100. There are even types of mold whose spores can cause diathesis in children, allergies (which over time, if not taken care of, can turn into asthma). To protect your child from allergies, regularly wet clean, keep the food in the house fresh, and feed your baby home-cooked meals.
Mold can appear anywhere, but most housewives encounter it in their own refrigerator. The question immediately arises: how to deal with moldy products? More often than any product, bread suffers from mold. He falls ill with this fungus already on the second or third day after purchase. Many housewives, having discovered such an unpleasant surprise, simply cut off the area affected by mold, and use the rest of the bread for food. None of us thought about how harmless this method is for our health and the health of our family.
Thanks to scientific research, we have learned that mold-affected flour products and dairy products, such as yogurt, must be thrown away as a whole (since they have a porous structure, and mold spores spread not only to the surface, but also to the very depths of the dairy product or flour product ).
There is one small exception to this rule – hard cheese. If you find that mold has formed on such cheese, then you can cut off the affected area of u2bu4bthe product (XNUMX-XNUMX cm), and even after this manipulation, do not eat the remaining cheese (ideally, it can be used to make pizza).
Probably, each of us had to deal with mold on jam. Some housewives feel sorry for throwing away their favorite product prepared by their own hands, and they remember about penicillin, or elite cheeses with mold. Only this mold has nothing to do with penicillin, or expensive aromatic cheeses! After all, the mold used in products is specially grown and prepared, and moldy home products contain about a hundred compounds that are toxic to humans. Homemade and noble cheese molds have different names and have different effects on the human body.
If such an incident happened, then you should not treat it indifferently. Yes, you won’t die from such an unpleasant addition to your diet, but it’s still a serious poisoning. The liver will suffer first, as with any food poisoning, regardless of the poison. You should immediately drink activated charcoal (1 tablet per 10 kilograms of a person’s weight), if a lot of spoiled product is eaten, then it is advisable to drink a solution of potassium permanganate to cleanse the stomach. After that, you should drink a lot of clean water, you can with lemon, warm weak tea, so that the body cleanses faster. For reinsurance, you can buy a drug that restores liver cells.
Do not think that any mold is harmful and bad. There are many types of mold, so let’s take a look at them.
noble mold
In Our Country, this fungus is called gray rot, in fact, microbiologists gave it the name Botrytis cinerea (first it kills the body itself, and then feeds on the dead tissues). In our country, people suffer greatly from this fungus, as a lot of edible products (berries, fruits, vegetables) become unusable because of it. But, you may be surprised, in Germany, France and Hungary, thanks to this type of fungus, the most famous and delicious types of wine are produced. Therefore, it becomes clear why in these countries this mold is called “noble”.
blue mold
If the noble mold was studied not so long ago, then the blue mold has been known since time immemorial. This type of mold is an indispensable component of marble cheeses (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Dor blue).
White mold
This type of mold (Pinicillium camamberti and caseicolum) is also added to the cheese during its preparation to add a unique note to the flavor characteristics. With the help of white mold, such famous aromatic cheeses as Camembert and Brie are born. Moreover, Camembert is considered more valuable at the end of the expiration date.
Remember that only high-quality cheese with noble mold is really harmless to the body, it contains many trace elements. But even such a high quality product is not recommended for pregnant women and children, and you should not abuse it either.