 There
are hundreds of different species of molds, but around your house you
will commonly see five: blue-green and white, white, pink, gray-brown and fuzzy and black.
The
pink is
fusarium and is dangerous. Do not eat
anything with pink mold on it as it produces a toxin. The US government
claims that the black mold (aspergillius) and the blue and white mold
(pencillium) can produce cancer-causing toxins when grown on grain. I
am skeptical of that claim, but I pass it on to you as is. You eat the
black mold (aspergillius) if you eat miso, and the blue and white mold
(pencillium) if you eat blue cheese.
All
molds are dangerous if you breathe their spores. If you touch
something with mold on it and see a fine mist or powder rise up, do not
breathe and immediately leave the room. After the powder has had time
to settle
down, return with a cloth filter over your face, take the item outside
and let the spores blow away in
the wind in a direction away from you. The spores are not toxic, per
se, it's just that they are baby molds and can grow into bigger molds
if they land on something moist and warm and you do not want them to do
so inside you. If you were intending to use them for something, like
making your own blue cheese or culturing pasteurized milk, you can do so, just be sure you do not breathe in any. (See spores for more information on dealing with mold that has been breathed into the lungs.)
Molds make many good things
that
could be useful to us like enzymes
that would help us digest our food, but primarily molds today are used
by large manufacturers to make things that are bad for us, like quorn
or high
fructose corn syrup. The govt seems most soliticitous
of our welfare in warning us that any mold could be dangerous to use
without mentioning all the large industries that use molds to create
and sell valuable commodities to their profit.
.
The Types Of Molds Around Us
•
White, Diplodia. A Harmless white mold that produces no toxins.
May sometimes have small black spots. We often speak of the white stuff
on top of sauerkraut or other lacto-ferments as "kahm" but I have been
unable to find any scientific reference to this kahm as an actual
living entity. Diplodia is my primary candidate for the mold that
causes "kahm", but I can find no scientific reference saying exactly
what kahm is. Diplodia is used in the production of salami and other
preserved sausages.
 • Turquoise and white,
Penicillium.
The blue and white mold
that makes blue cheese and penicillin, and make lemons and bread moldy.
In ancient
times, soldiers took this moldy bread with them on campaigns to use to
prevent infection from war wounds. Probably harmless but the government
claims it sometimes produces chemicals called "ochratoxins" that causes
cancer (this doesn't stop them from selling it in birth control pills.)
There
is a book
entitled, "Selected mycotoxins: ochratoxins, trichothecenes, ergot."
refuting the carcinogen claim. See Issues below.
• Gray-brown and fuzzy,
Botrytis -- Destroys fruit during cool,
damp
weather, becomes noble rot making sweet dessert wine when weather is
damp in the morning and hot and dry in the afternoon.
• Black, Aspergillius niger
-- Also
called filamentous fungi. A
few of more than 200
of these molds cause illness. Most people are naturally immune. A. niger fermentation is
"generally regarded as safe" (GRAS) by the FDA. Used by industry to
make citric acid and gluconic acid. Enzymes
produced by A.. niger fermentation include glucoamylase, pectinase and
galactosidase (an enzyme that breaks down certain complex sugars, is a
component of Beano and other medications which the manufacturers claim
can decrease flatulence). In 2006 it was reported that a secreted RNase
produced by A. niger called actibind has antiangiogenic (anti-tumor)
and
anticarcinogenic characteristics. A. niger is the main agent in the
fermentation of Pu-erh tea and miso.
• Pink,
Fusarium and Gibberella
X fusarium,
the non-reproductive stage of gibberella -- white to pink or
salmon-coloured mold with a "streaking" or
"star-burst" pattern. Fusarium
attacks cells by secreting mycotoxins that dissolve cell walls so that
the fungus is then able to eat the cell's contents, enter the cell
cavity and reproduce. Produces
a toxin called fumonisin which can cause
liver and kidney damage and birth defects. It was used to create
biological warfare agent "yellow rain". Mostly infects corn and other
cereals, toxin
mostly affects pigs and horses. Mold can grow in potted plants in
hosptials and toxins can affect immunosuppressed
patients. Caution:
don't eat anything with pink
mold and especially don't breathe or take in any.
X gibberella,
the reproductive stage of fusarium -- dark pink, red or purple.
Produces:
* gibberellin, a plant
hormone that
promotes cell elongation and is
good for flower formation, and seedling growth;
* vomitoxin or
deoxynivalenol, an
estrogen toxin that causes anorexia
or lack of weight gain in animals but is not considered highly toxic in
humans (that is, you would have to eat a lot of infected grain to be
affected by it); and
* zearalenone, a
mycoestrogen that
causes abortions in animals.
Mostly infects corn and
other
cereals. Caution: don't eat anything with
pink, red or purple mold. If accidentally, ingested, no treatment is
required provided the toxin source is removed. Symptoms will go away 3-4
weeks after eliminating suspect food.
Appearance of Molds
On corn
left to right:
diplodia (white),
penicillium (blue-green and
white) and fusarium or gibarella (pink). Pink fusarium produces toxins
and should not be eaten. The white diploida and blue green pencillium
are not toxic and are not dangerous to anything but the corn. The pink
one is fusarium and can cause loss of appetite, and subsequently loss of weight if consumption is continued, and induce
abortion.
Issues
• How The Medical Establishment Decided Mold-Made
Zearelenone Suppresses the Immune System
Zearalenone is a
mycoestrogen. It is sometimes called a mycotoxin, but this is a
misnomer. Whether someone calls it a mycoestrogen or a mycotoxin
usually depends on whether they want to scare you away from it or sell
it to you as birth control pills.
Zearalenone is all
around us. You eat trace amounts of it unavoidably. In noticeable
amounts it is a sickly pink color and you would avoid it. In order to
eat enough to do any damage to your hormone system you would have to
eat more infected corn and cereal than you could eat even if you wanted
to eat it.
So the gov't did a
study to find a way to deliberately suppress the immune sysem (to help
with transplants). They took an extract of zearalenone in
concentrations higher than you would be able to eat if you were to get
it from its natural sources of corn and cereal. They gave this
extracted zearalenone to New Zealand hamsters that had been
bred to have a weak liver. After prolonged exposure to the substance,
the hamsters developed liver problems which in turn compromised their
immune response.
So, that's why the
gov't says that mycotoxins from mold harm the immune system -- they
took
amounts far more than anyone could normally eat if they wanted to, and
gave it to animals that
were genetically engineered to be susceptible to it but who would
probably refuse to eat it if they had the choice because its first
effect is to put animals off their feed and, after some time, the
animals got sick. So, yes, if you were to get injections of zearalenone
over time it probably would damage your endocrine sysem but here on the
real world where you would (a) not eat extract of moldy cereal and (b)
would stop eating it if you did so accidentally and (c) you are not
specifically designed to have a liver that would be susceptible to
large quantities of moldy cereal extract over a prolonged period of
time, it will probably, in all likelihood, not cause damage to either
your liver or your immune system. Not because it couldn't, under some
circumstances, but because those circumstances are never going to occur
outside a lab or for people who are not lab animals.
• The classification of mold metabolites as antibiotic
or mycotoxin is based on their toxicity or beneficial effect in
treating diseases.
After that, it appears
that
the worst
thing toxins produced by most
molds
can do to you -- and not all molds produce any kind of toxin whatsoever
-- is make you high, delusional or give you a shamanic
drug experience, depending on your point of view. That is another
aspect that our benevolent government neglects to tell us about molds,
preferring to lump them all such effects under the adjective
"poisonous".
Not
all things labelled "Poison" are equal.
There are 3 things the government and FDA call poison: stuff that makes
you sick or dead that you or I would call poison, stuff that people use
as a cure for something the government doesn't approve of like Laetrile
in apricot pits, almonds and apple seeds and stuff that is used as a
recreational drug by some people, like the stuff found in green
potatoes.
Four-Season
Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long
by Eliot Coleman
Truly
Cultured Rejuvenating
Taste, Health and Community With Naturally Fermented Foods by Nancy
Bentley
Fire
Your Doctor! How to Be Independently Healthy by Andrew W. Saul
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