Do Not Eat or Touch The Mold On Bread

Bread is a very common household food. We usually eat bread for breakfast and sometimes for lunch and even dinner. As a food staple, bread is bought by the American people almost everyday. Sometimes, we forget to eat the bread past its expiry date and we see mold on bread. It is sometimes black or greenish or sometimes it manifests itself as whitish or a very light yellow tinge. Mold color sometimes depend on the organic matter they are eating.

Mold is microscopic fungi that live in moist or damp places. They prefer dark places where the sun does not shine directly on them and where the humidity is high enough for them to thrive. Mold on bread is a common occurrence when the bread is left too long without any activity of movement. Mold spores are in the air even as we breathe it in and when they land on areas with optimum condition for their growth they thrive. All molds need to thrive are water, humidity and food. Food in this case is any organic matter that was once living.

Dangers of Mold On Bread

Some mold can produce a deadly toxin called mycotoxins. These are deadly to humans and animas alike. When you see mold on bread, please do not attempt to touch it with your bare hands or even try to eat it. The mycotoxin is an almost non biodegradable substance that can withstand cooking and some colder temperatures. This can transmit itself to humans through the food we eat and the livestock which eat them. The best thing to do if there is mold on bread is to throw away the bread, uneaten.

Solutions to Mold on Bread

Mold on bread can be avoided by lessening the moisture content of the bread or adding preservatives to it. The problem with lessening the moisture content of the bread is it makes the bread hard and dry, making it less appetizing and much like crackers. This defeats the purpose of bread since bread is supposed to be soft and easy to eat.

Adding preservatives to the bread before cooking can make its shelf life longer but some preservatives are said to have side effects which are not desirable. Longer shelf life is desirable in bread since we do not have to be aware of the expiry date on it but it is still dangerous to assume that preservatives can help us in the long run.