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Doubt: Can we eat a food if we cut the moldy part?

Wednesday, August 2, 2023 - 12:36
Publication
Público

When a fruit has mold, some people cut off the affected part and eat the rest. Is it the right attitude? Most likely not. Certain fungi produce mycotoxins, harmful substances that can migrate into areas of the food that appear intact – and so the general advice tends to be to reject the food.

Doubt: can we eat a food if we cut the moldy part?

“When I look at a food that has mold, I can't tell if the fungus that is in that food is a producer of mycotoxins or not. These toxic substances are produced by some fungi. We know that these substances have the ability to migrate, that is, they are not limited to the area where the mold grows. Hence, the general recommendation is to reject food that has mold”, explains to PÚBLICO Paula Teixeira, professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa

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