Cheese is, and I do not think I am exaggerating here, perhaps the highest form of food milk can aspire to. The hundreds of varieties mean there is likely a cheese for nearly every palate, and almost all cultures around the world with access to milk have created their own versions—from soft fresh cheeses you can eat the day they are made to cheeses aged so long they could vote in the next election. These days, even the most basic grocery store has a decent stash of slabs and wedges to choose from, and if you are anything like me, it is easy to overbuy. It is also easy to forget about a cheese you have already opened and unwrap a new one. Which means, inevitably, we are faced with a moldy cheese. This begs the question, is moldy cheese salvageable, and how do I know?
In some ways, all cheese is, in and of itself, mold. And many of the molds involved in cheesemaking are great. That thick coating of white mold on soft-rind cheeses like Brie or Camembert, or the blue veins in your favorite Gorgonzola. And frankly, none of the molds that are likely to grow on your cheeses will make you ill. But they will potentially affect the flavor of your cheese, and not in a good way. So, it is important to know how to handle the mold on your cheeses to ensure you don't waste any delicious morsels.
What Should I Do with Moldy Cheese?
Assess the mold situation first by type of cheese. Any fresh soft cheese—ricotta, mascarpone, chèvre and the like—should just be discarded since the damp environment means that the mold has likely penetrated deep into the cheese and, while not toxic, will have negatively impacted the flavor. Soft cheeses like Brie or Port Salut should have about a quarter inch cut away from any surface where mold is visible. Harder, aged cheeses, like aged Cheddar or Parmesan can just have the mold scraped away. With white, fuzzy mold, tinged with green, the flavor effect is minimal and the mold can be safely cut away without incident. Black or gray mold is less desirable, and you should cut away more of it to remove any cheese that might be impacted. Any moldy cheese that smells of ammonia or is both moldy and wet should be discarded.
You ate cheese, so you were eating mold anyway. There is no need to panic unless you ate a whole wedge of cheese thickly coated in green fur (and if so, you have other issues you might want to explore); you are very unlikely to get sick from cheese with a little mold on it. Your stomach acid is some powerful stuff and will kill the spores in the mold before you feel any impact.
How Can I Prevent Cheese from Molding?
Storing cheeses properly and eating them within a reasonable time frame is the best way to prevent cheese from molding. To store cheese, wrap it in special cheese paper or in a layer of parchment paper. Label with the type of cheese and the day you bought it. Store in your crisper drawer, which will have consistent temperature and humidity. If you have a dedicated wine fridge, you can store cheese in there, where the temps are less cold, which is actually better for the cheese.
What Cheeses Are Least Likely to Mold?
Want to avoid the mold issue as much as possible? Stick with long-aged, hard cheeses like Parmesan, pecorino, older Cheddars, aged Gouda and the like. Cheeses that age for 18 months or longer are least likely to mold on you.
The Bottom Line
Whichever cheeses you love most, buy them fresh, store them properly and don't get worried about a little bit of mold. After all, in the cheese world, sometimes the mold is the most delicious part!
Mold generally can't penetrate far into hard and semisoft cheeses, such as cheddar, colby, Parmesan and Swiss. So you can cut away the moldy part and eat the rest of the cheese. Cut off at least 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) around and below the moldy spot.
Discard any soft cheese showing mold. For hard cheese, such as Cheddar, cut off at least 1-inch around and below the mold spot (keep the knife out of the mold itself). After trimming off the mold, the remaining cheese should be safe to eat. Re-cover the cheese in fresh wrap and keep refrigerated.
As soon as you realize the cheese is moldy, throw it out. If you notice mold on a block of hard or semisoft cheese, it is safe to cut it off, along with a one-inch radius around it. While rare, possible symptoms of eating mold may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath and allergic reactions.
There are some molds that are safe to eat. These are used to make cheeses such as Brie, Blue Cheese, and Camembert. For Blue Cheese, Penicillium cultures added creating dark blue or blue-grey veins throughout the cheese. These are safe to eat because they do not produce the toxins that could be harmful to us.
It's likely that the white substance on the outside of your cheese is calcium lactate. Calcium lactate is common in aged cheese. It is basically a natural calcium buildup that occurs over time during the aging process, and it sometimes will become visible on the surface of the cheese.
One common cause is too much moisture when the cheese is being stored. The use of plastic wrapping or zip top bags can retain too much moisture. When you consider this, which container would you choose instead for your cheese? The other common cause of moldy cheese is inconsistent temperatures in refrigeration.
A pungent cheese will still taste pleasant to a connoisseur. When it has gone bad, it will taste overly bitter or sour, or have a musty quality to it, like drinking water from a moldy pipe. And if a mild cheese all of a sudden has some character to it, don't assume you just aged your own cheese. Just throw it away.
The time it takes food poisoning symptoms to start can vary. Illness often starts in about 1 to 3 days. But symptoms can start any time from 30 minutes to 3 weeks after eating contaminated food.
Microbiologists recommend against scooping out the mold and using the remaining condiment. (such as cabbage, bell peppers, carrots, etc.) Use. Cut off at least 1 inch around and below the mold spot (keep the knife out of the mold itself so it will not cross-contaminate other parts of the produce).
Is cheese made from mold? Cheese is not mold nor is it the by-product of mold. Some cheese varieties like blue cheese have specific species of mold that are intentionally added during the cheesemaking process to enhance the flavor or texture. The mold added to these cheeses can be thought of as a special ingredient.
Thread mould is a defect which occurs sporadically in maturing vacuum packaged Cheddar cheese, caused by the growth of fungi in folds and wrinkles of the plastic film in which the cheese is packaged.
Blue cheese is made using Penicillium, a type of mold that's responsible for its unique taste, smell, and appearance. Unlike other types of mold, Penicillium does not produce toxins and is safe to consume.
That thick coating of white mold on soft-rind cheeses like Brie or Camembert, or the blue veins in your favorite Gorgonzola. And frankly, none of the molds that are likely to grow on your cheeses will make you ill. But they will potentially affect the flavor of your cheese, and not in a good way.
Soft cheeses such as cottage cheese, ricotta or Brie can be refrigerated one week but they don't freeze well. Hard cheeses such as cheddar, Swiss and Parmesan can be stored in the refrigerator six months before opening the package and three to four weeks after opening. It can also be frozen six months.
So long as you still like the taste, the cheese is fine. Just be aware that the flavor will intensify on most cheeses over time. If the small bite of cheese makes your tongue, lips or cheek tingle or burn, the cheese is bad (even if it passed the look and smell tests).
The defect does not have an impact on flavor or safety, but it does have significant economic consequences as the appearance of the pink color on the surface or within the cheese can result in products not being released to, or being withdrawn from, the market.
source Program (FARRP), no evidence exists that moldy cheeses are potentially harmful to mold-allergic individuals. Consumers with mold allergy generally are responding to the inhalation of mold spores. On the other hand, ingestion of moldy cheeses generally involves the ingestion of mycelia, not spores.
However on 'hard' cheeses like this you will be fine if you liberally cut the mold away (that is a big part around the mold). On softer cheeses though, any sign of mold throw away! You can get quite sick of eating that. You can eat most mold in general.
Introduction: My name is Kimberely Baumbach CPA, I am a gorgeous, bright, charming, encouraging, zealous, lively, good person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/is-it-safe-to-eat-moldy-cheese-5cc4b40b5b224686a7a9d0b2495e99a6.jpg "Can You Eat Cheese If It Has Mold on It? (1)")
