Mold in shredded cheese would you eat?

miami85

Fri, Mar 05 2021, 1:06 pm

The Department of Health would probably be mad at me, but assuming that the rest of the cheese smelled ok I would do it, but only right away. Unless you have a specific allergy to mold. I mean Blue Cheese is mold. Penicillin in Mold. Not all molds are dangerous. My husband is allergic to mold so he'd probably throw it out.

amother

Pink

Fri, Mar 05 2021, 1:12 pm

miami85 wrote:

I have done it the past and will continue to do so! I pick out the moldy pieces and use the rest. (If there's a lot of mold mixed in and I can't pick it all out, I will toss it) CY cheese is expensive where I live! And I also freeze it but sometimes that isn't enough.

Ima Piano

Fri, Mar 05 2021, 1:29 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

If you found mold in a bag of shredded cheese that you can not return. Would you remove the mold and eat the remaining cheese?

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I would throw the bag in the garbage. Never in a million years would I eat that cheese

Amarante

Fri, Mar 05 2021, 3:10 pm

I wouldn't use it because what you see is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the mold spores. It is interesting that people who are hypersensitive lest an invisible bug get eaten would risk eating mold.

Soft processed cheese that is shredded is NOT supposed to have mold. It is entirely different than the kind of mold that is used for a cheese like blue cheese. It's like mushrooms - many mushrooms are safe to eat but that doesn't mean one should just blithely eat any mushroom - and yes I know that a mushroom is a fungus and molds are technically a form of fungus.

jerusalem90

Sat, Mar 06 2021, 1:31 pm

Amarante wrote:

It is interesting that people who are hypersensitive lest an invisible bug get eaten would risk eating mold.

Eating insects is asur by halacha. Afaik there is no halachic problem eating possibly moldy cheese -- unless you were to argue that you'd be transgressing "ve meod shamartem Al nafshechem" (the obligation to try to stay healthy) -- but I feel that is a stretch.

FranticFrummie

Sat, Mar 06 2021, 2:33 pm

I'm highly allergic to mold, so NO. It's different from eating blue cheese where the mold is a very specific and controlled strain. Random mold is not healthy for anyone.

This is why I always keep shredded cheese in the freezer. The second you open it, there is a huge amount of surface area that can get contaminated from the spores in the air. Even if you never touch the cheese with your bare hands, it can still get inoculated.

Keep in mind that mold is in the same family as mushrooms. What you see on the surface is the "fruiting body", the last stage of maturity. What you don't see is what is going on inside the cheese, where the mycelium are. There is a vast network of microscopic mold/fungus that develops before you actually see anything on the surface.

This is why if you see a mold spot on a loaf of bread, you should throw out the whole loaf instead of just removing the spot. If there is a visible spot, I can guarantee you that the entire loaf is full of mycelium. (I also keep bread in the freezer, and only take out a couple of slices at a time.)