You open your refrigerator to find that your sandwich bread has a few spots of green mold. When you notice that mold or other fungi have grown on your food, you may wonder if the food is still safe to consume. Mold or yeast growth on some foods is fine, but in many cases, the presence of fungi on food means that the food has gone bad.
Fungi
According to Jane M. Hemminger, author of "Food Safety," fungi are single-celled organisms that lack chlorophyll. Yeasts, mold and mushrooms are included in this group. Fungi are a diverse group, ranging from the mold that produces penicillin to robust portobello mushrooms to the yeast you use to bake your cakes. Not all fungi are benign, however. Some molds and yeasts can spoil foods and make you ill, and some mushrooms are poisonous.
Benign Fungi
Good fungi include mold on hard cheeses. You can simply remove the mold and eat the rest of the cheese, according to Hemminger. Health folklore abounds with tales of eating moldy cheese to cure a bacterial infection, although modern medicine has since harnessed these beneficial molds and made them into pills and medicines that are more palatable to ingest. Mold that grows on bread is not considered edible because it adds nothing to the flavor of the bread, but it isn't a health hazard, according to Raymond Calvel, author of "The Taste of Bread."
Bad Fungi
Eugenia Bone, author of "Well Preserved," draws a distinction between mold and yeast that appear on their own and those that are introduced to food, such as molds that are added to cheeses like blue cheese or yeast that is added to bread. Most mold or yeast growths that occur by themselves are an indication that the food has spoiled, Bone says. If mushrooms grow on your food, the food has gone bad, but mushrooms rarely grow on refrigerated items because the environment inside the refrigerator is too dry and cold.
What to Do if You Have Food with Fungi
If you notice food with mold, yeast or mushrooms growing on it and it is not fungi that has been introduced to the food, discard it. The only exception would be mold on hard cheese, which Hemminger says you can simply cut off. If you have a question about the safety of your food, it is better to throw it away than to take a chance and accidentally eat something toxic. If you ingested a mold, yeast or mushroom accidentally, save a sample of the item and call your physician immediately.
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