How many of you have been to somebody’s house for tea and been given a moldy piece of sponge cake or Danish pastry?

I must say that it has happened to me, not often, but it has happened. What do you do? Do you remove the mold and leave it on the side of the plate? Feed it to the dog, provided there is one? Cunningly stuff it behind the seat cushions? You’re in a jam and you know it. Those eyes are on you and they want to see your reaction to the cake that you know that you are going to have to force down, mold and all.

You just hope that the mold will not make you sick. You go back home without saying a word and take a couple of stiff shots of whiskey in the hope that the alcohol will kill the microorganisms that you were forced to ingest. Or, if you are particularly bold you might decide to say ” I think I’ll leave that, I think I saw a bit of mold on it”. In which case you will be brought another piece of moldy cake only this time the mold has been scraped off. Either way, you loose.

It always seems that the mold has done you no harm and after ringing the clinic for re assurance you decide to let the whole matter drop. I think most of us have been in that boat, right?

Molds are microscopic organisms which are connected to the fungus family. It has been common belief that molds are part of the plant kingdom but recent research is now questioning that assumption. More and more scientists are now considering molds to be a part of the animal kingdom. Moulds can produce mycotoxins in food.

It is possible, from a food aspect, to divide molds into three main groups. In the first group we have edible molds, in the second group we have moulds which are used for medicinal purposes and in the third group we have poisonous molds. If we were to put each of these categories into three different circles in the form of a triangle and then squash them together so that they merge into each other to an extent if one third we would get a true picture of how molds really act.

Some molds are edible within limits and if those limits are exceeded then the mold becomes toxic. Some molds are edible and yet have medicinal qualities, some are edible, medicinal which also have toxic qualities and some molds are toxic but have some medicinal qualities when used in the right way and in the right dosages.

We all know about the molds that are used in the cheese industry. Molds are used to deter the contamination of cheese by undesirable bacteria as well as for taste reasons. You can eat as much of this moldy cheese as you like and you will not be sick because of it.

I 1990 I remember that we had several cases of a very violent form of liver cancer that claimed the lives of quite a few people. This mold was found to be present in pistachio nuts that originated in Turkey. Most of the people who died from this mold were people who worked in kiosks which sold pistachios. This is one instance of a mold which can infest food which has quite lethal effects when ingested in sufficient quantity.

The rule of thumb concerning mold is that any form of mold that forms naturally on food should not be ingested. Throw the food out.Don’t even try to salvage part of the food. Molds used in cheese and other food sources such as truffles should only be eaten if you are sure the food source is safe. Medicinal molds such as antibiotics are to some extent out of your control but if you know that you have had an adverse reaction to these products in the past then do not take them. Inform your physician about your reaction and he will choose an alternate treatment.

Molds are one of the food hygiene issues which we come across in our daily lives. Some molds which we may inadvertently eat are hidden and by this I mean within various types of fruit and nuts, Apples often have mold in the center where the pips are. An apple should always be cut in half and inspected before eating. Nuts are often moldy also and should not be opened with your teeth. Always open the nut in such a way that allows you to inspect the nut before eating. Do not eat moldy, sunflower, pumpkin seeds or ground nuts. These molds are not good for you.

Ok, so lets look at the facts. We know that the nuts were rodent infested and that salmonella bacterium were found to be present in the nuts. Ok, sounds reasonable! food hygiene standards were down and a few dirty little mice or rats got at the nuts.

Here’s a video demonstrating the somewhat less than delicate method of harvesting pistachios

Excuse me! Don’t all types of nuts, seeds and grain attract rats anyway? Don’t pistachios grow in the open environment where field mice, cute little chipmunks and a whole host of other little critters frolic to their hearts content. OK, the mice and rats that infest wharehouses, sewers and industrial areas are not quite the same as those found in nature, right?

The answer to this is yes, and no. And another question comes to mind. Is salmonella the only dangerous bacteria spread by rodents? The answer to this is NO. Rodent urine very often contains a bacteria called leptospira which infects other species with a desease called leptospirosos. Rodents have no control over their excretions and there fore wherever they go a trail of their infected urine is left behind. This is how many snake species track rodents.

Leptospirosis is a very unpleasant desease which can require up to three weeks in a hospital bed to recover from. It is a zoonotic desease and is often contracted by fishermen who work on wharfs, dairy workers and other professions involving animals or places where rodents congregate such as sewers and feed bins. Leptospira as a species is far more heat resistant than salmonella. We should remember that not all deseases involving food are contracted through ingestion. Some, like leptospirosis can be contracted through healthy skin, especially when wet.

Rodents may also be responsible for the spreading of other forms of bacteria such as camphilobacter, staphilococcus aureus, clostridium spp. pseudomonas aeroginosa and many more. All of which can cause serious illness and similarly to leptospira are more heat resistant than salmonella.

But let’s say for a minute that in spite of all these other possibilities salmonella is our prime concern. What could have happened that caused the bacteria to remain alive? They are roasted and salted, right? In theory that is correct. Pistachios are typically roasted and salted if they are left in the shell. If they are taken out of the shell they may be sugared in which case the pistachios are dipped into boiling sugar syrup and cooked in an oven so that the sugar crystalizes.

If salmonella remained alive on the nuts it is clear that they did not receive sufficient roasting. Could it be that the second largest pistachio distributer in the ‘US of A’ did not roast his nuts adequately? What’s going on? We have been chomping these nuts for years why the problems all of a sudden? Were there no rodents then?

We are in a recession, right? Cuts in costs have to be made, right? Could it be that workers were instructed to change the control setting on the roasters to a lower temperature and/or keep the nuts within the machine for a shorter period of time.

As I said, salmonella is by no means the only health risk where pistachios are concerned. We have not even started to discuss liver cancer causing moulds that have been found on pistachios all over the world.

One thing that I can assure you is this, just about every pistachio that you will ever eat has been in indirect or direct contact with a rodent at some stage of its production. It is all but impossible to keep rodents away from this type of crop in the natural habitat. The problem that occured here is one of HACCP’s and GMP. In my opinion critical control points were disregarded in the interest of saving money. This could include pest control within the processing plant also.

The moral of this story is that if you don’t want to loose big time, don’t try to save small time!