Video: Is It Safe to Eat Mold?

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In general, eating mold is not a safe practice because it can cause diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and an upset stomach. Throw out moldy food items with advice from a registered and licensed dietitian in this free video on nutrition and diets.

Video Transcript

My name is Christine Marquette and I am a Registered and Licensed Dietitian with The Austin Regional Clinic and I have been asked is it safe to eat mold. In general it is not safe to eat mold. There are a few items that are actually made with mold in the manufacturing process, things like blue cheese, some types of Brie cheese or Roquefort cheese, however, those are under very controlled conditions in the manufacturing process so in that respect, yes it's o'kay to eat that kind of mold but if it's mold that is just growing on something in your refrigerator then you definitely want to avoid it because those types of mold can cause diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, all sorts of stomach upset. If it is something that is pretty soft or a high water content food say for example a soft cheese like a Brie or even a mozzarella cheese or cottage cheese or if it's in a lot of fruits or stews or meat, that kind of thing you just want to throw away, you don't want to try to cut any of it off, just throw the whole thing away because those types of mold they can get very deep into the tissue of those food items. You may not even see it in there you may think you have removed it all but there will still be some mold in there and it can really cause you some stomach upset. You also want to throw out items such as rice, any type of grain or peanuts if they have any trace of mold in them because that type of mold is highly toxin and it is called apitoxin and it can spread throughout the entire grain and you may not even see it so that is best that you completely throw it out. The types of food that you may be able to cut the mold out of and actually recover would be hard cheeses like a cheddar cheese or swiss cheese. You need to cut at least a one inch portion away from the moldy spot and leftover cheese you want to use as quickly as possible. You may also be able to recover some hard vegetable things like broccoli, celery, even onions and those types of foods and if you cut a good one inch portion away from the mold make sure your knife doesn't come in contact with the mold you can recover that leftover portion of those particular vegetables but you do want to make sure that you use them as quickly as possible.

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Is It Safe to Eat Mold?

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