There comes a period in everybody's life when we get out of the home and start learning the way to dwell on our own. An inevitable part of this quest is leaving food unprotected in the refrigerator or pantry for too much time, creating something which looks like it came from a science fiction film and emits a smell like it came from a scary movie. What you are witnessing is mold, which could possess some severe effects on your decision of survival foods.
The reason that mold would make you actually sick if you were to consume that piece of bread/pizza/whatever is because various molds give out various sorts of chemical substances through their metabolic process. Some of these are toxins called mycotoxins. Penicillin, the first great antibiotic is a mycotoxin, amazingly fatal to bacteria which it would compete with for food. However in addition there are toxins which affect people.
One of the most common is a mold referred to as fusarium. Fusarium, like many molds, lives in dark, damp areas which is why it shows up in several grains. Whenever grains are in silage, as they are in large agrobusiness farms, it is the perfect condition for molds such as Fusarium to develop. Studies have shown that almost all corn and an adequate amount of wheat in the US has detectable levels of tricothecenes, the mycotoxin made by fusarium mold.
What can you do?
Is it truly so terrible though? What's wrong with a little mold? Well firstly, it is fatal to the point of being used as a form of biological warfare. Tricothecenes have been used repeatedly in the 20th century with harmful results. During the cold war, tricothecenes under the code name 'Yellow Rain' were chosen by the Soviet Union to bring about the deaths of countless numbers in Southeast Asia.
Make no mistake, they are poisons of the very potent sort. Very small amounts have shown to result in complications ranging from kidney damage to cancer. Plus they are present in plenty of the grain eaten nowadays. The capability to detect mycotoxins has existed ever since the mid 1980s however studies have shown contamination in food globally. For something that could cause consequences on micrograms per day, there are quantities as high as milligrams for each kilogram present in grain all over the earth.
Avoiding mycotoxins
As a prepper, there are actions to take in order to avoid releasing the toxins into your life, ranging from light to extreme. Setting out, it is advisable to ensure that you store grains (and all sorts of food items) perfectly. Vacuum sealing and using oxygen absorbers is important. The next thing will be to prevent getting grain from bulk manufactured farms. The larger the operations, a lot more likely it is to keep grain in silage.
And for people ready to take it to the max, the ultimate step is getting rid of grains from the preparations. This is yet another vote for homesteading, food you grow yourself are often fresh. In case your grains get contaminated (or already are available contaminated) storage is not likely to make them better. A certain amount of the toxins can turn a life sustaining staple into a deadly poison.
The reason that mold would make you actually sick if you were to consume that piece of bread/pizza/whatever is because various molds give out various sorts of chemical substances through their metabolic process. Some of these are toxins called mycotoxins. Penicillin, the first great antibiotic is a mycotoxin, amazingly fatal to bacteria which it would compete with for food. However in addition there are toxins which affect people.
One of the most common is a mold referred to as fusarium. Fusarium, like many molds, lives in dark, damp areas which is why it shows up in several grains. Whenever grains are in silage, as they are in large agrobusiness farms, it is the perfect condition for molds such as Fusarium to develop. Studies have shown that almost all corn and an adequate amount of wheat in the US has detectable levels of tricothecenes, the mycotoxin made by fusarium mold.
What can you do?
Is it truly so terrible though? What's wrong with a little mold? Well firstly, it is fatal to the point of being used as a form of biological warfare. Tricothecenes have been used repeatedly in the 20th century with harmful results. During the cold war, tricothecenes under the code name 'Yellow Rain' were chosen by the Soviet Union to bring about the deaths of countless numbers in Southeast Asia.
Make no mistake, they are poisons of the very potent sort. Very small amounts have shown to result in complications ranging from kidney damage to cancer. Plus they are present in plenty of the grain eaten nowadays. The capability to detect mycotoxins has existed ever since the mid 1980s however studies have shown contamination in food globally. For something that could cause consequences on micrograms per day, there are quantities as high as milligrams for each kilogram present in grain all over the earth.
Avoiding mycotoxins
As a prepper, there are actions to take in order to avoid releasing the toxins into your life, ranging from light to extreme. Setting out, it is advisable to ensure that you store grains (and all sorts of food items) perfectly. Vacuum sealing and using oxygen absorbers is important. The next thing will be to prevent getting grain from bulk manufactured farms. The larger the operations, a lot more likely it is to keep grain in silage.
And for people ready to take it to the max, the ultimate step is getting rid of grains from the preparations. This is yet another vote for homesteading, food you grow yourself are often fresh. In case your grains get contaminated (or already are available contaminated) storage is not likely to make them better. A certain amount of the toxins can turn a life sustaining staple into a deadly poison.
About the Author:
Thank you for reading! Terrance Franklin writes about nutrition and survival on a number of sites on the web. For more information on survival foods, be sure to check out http://survivalfoodshq.weebly.com/. And for even deeper reading, follow the link at survival foods
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