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We often only see the colorful, fuzzy part of a mold, but in reality, there’s an invisible root system burrowing in our food.

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These microscopic fungi are not only figuratively stomach-turning — they can also be literally dangerous if consumed. But where do you draw the line? Is it really that bad to cut off the mold and eat the rest?

“Molds are microscopic fungi,” Feng tells Inverse. “They are small but they can be found in virtually every environment. It can be detected both indoors and outdoors, year-round.”

The new model features a sophisticated two-story automation system that implements the subsequent process steps such as the application of RFIDs, IML barcodes and logos plus post-processing and quality assurance within the cycle time. The two Krauss Maffei LRX robots right at the machine have twelve-meter-long Z-axes and thus a particularly large working radius.

Utz is currently using another of Krauss Maffei's digital products to develop a predictive quality solution in collaboration with the Institute for Materials Technology and Plastics Processing (IWK) of the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences. The DataXplorer can save up to 500 signals per second from the machine and other sensors and display them as curves. The goal now is to determine how many of these are needed in order to predict good components reliably.

At eight locations on three continents, Utz produces solutions for in-house and external logistics. Recently, the company from Switzerland commissioned the largest injection moulding machine in the country to date. The new machine with a clamping force of 40,000 kN will allow the manufacturer to use stack and multi-cavity moulds and thus increase production volume. As a global player, Utz has over 1,350 employees and state-of-the-art production locations in Germany, England, France, Poland, China, the USA and Mexico. With an export share of around 40 percent, Utz Switzerland delivers its products primarily to Italy, Austria, Eastern Europe, the Scandinavian countries and Oceania.

CHECK, PLEASE is an Inverse series that uses biology, chemistry, and physics to debunk the biggest food myths and assumptions.

The heavyweight machinery traveled on a total of 22 trucks from Munich to Bremgarten (about 15 kilometers west of Zurich): one for the machine bed, each platen, one per two tiebars and one each for many other components. After twelve weeks of set-up, the MX 4000 went online on the requested target date and replaced an older machine with a clamping force of 27,000 kN that was energy-inefficient, offered limited technical options, had only a simple linear robot and had insufficient energy efficiency.

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The family-owned company runs three shifts at its plant on the new MX 4000, producing approximately 20 different products with weights of up to 50 kilograms, including pallets, boxes and Paloxes. The material is usually a polyolefin such as PP or HDPE, but ABS or technical plastics are also sometimes used.

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Being surrounded by invisible mold spores at all times might sound daunting, but Feng, Bhunia, and Farber all agree that there are some simple and useful ways to mitigate this risk at home. These include:

Mold has all the hallmarks of a cute microorganism: it’s small, colorful, and fuzzy. But when you open your bag of sandwich bread to find that small splotches of the stuff have preemptively colonized your lunch, it’s anything but endearing.

“You couldn't tell unless you actually isolated that mold on a plate and then did a number of techniques to determine what that mycotoxin may be,” explains Farber.

And while not all molds have mycotoxins, Farber says that’s it’s impossible to tell with the naked eye which do and which don’t.

Feng also says that moisture and humidity are prime conditions for mold growth, making our home kitchens a potential breeding ground.

Physically, you can think of the mold as having similar characteristics to a dandelion, Feng says. This means nearly invisible roots, a visible stalk that rises above the surface, and spores floating through the air; spreading their DNA.

These mold-grown toxins are called mycotoxins and encompass a family of toxins called aflatoxins that have been linked to liver cancer. Feng says that you can think of mycotoxins in comparison to poisonous snake venom, except its effects tend to have a longer timeline than most deadly venoms.

According to Andreas Schlegel, Head of Operations/ Managing Director at Georg Utz, the important factor is that this new investment opens up a wider gateway for material purchasing. In the case of regrind, for example, it is also possible to buy different quality grades or polyolefin blends that are more readily available. APC plus has been used on the smaller machines for two years, and in this time, scrap has decreased significantly.

Inverse spoke with three food scientists and microbiologists — Betty Feng, Arun Bhunia, and Jeffrey Farber — to get to the bottom of this moldy mystery.

This latest purchasing decision is based on a long-standing relationship based on mutual trust. The group already operates a total of 50 injection moulding machines from Krauss Maffei, 22 of which are running in Switzerland at clamping forces starting at 800 kN.

Containers for today's logistics have to be stackable, feature IML barcodes, integrated RFIDs and, of course, the logo of the company that owns them. Switzerland's Georg Utz company has specialised in this application, and for this reason it has commissioned the country's largest injection moulding machine, a Krauss Maffei MX 4000-75000.

The percentage of recycled material is currently 35 percent and Utz operates its own recycling sites for this purpose, for example a mill in Switzerland with a throughput of 1.2 tons per hour. Plans call for the percentage of recycled material to increase to 80 percent as part of the Utz Group's global climate strategy. This is where one function of Krauss Maffei machines plays a special role: APC plus. Based on the melt viscosity, APC plus controls the changeover point and the holding pressure level and thus ensures parts with extremely consistent weight. This balances out batch fluctuations that result from different raw materials and percentages of recycled material.

It's tempting to simply cut the mold of your sandwich bread, but food microbiologists say that this isn't always safe and could lead to eating toxins.

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However, you may be able to get away with this amputation-like approach with comparatively harder foods says Farber, like hard cheese or carrots. For these types of products, the USDA recommends, “Cut[ing] off at least 1 inch around and below the mold spot.”

Mold comes in many forms, ranging from the dangerous black mold that might haunt the damp corners of your house to small fuzzy patches of periwinkle blue that bloom on slices of bread. But at its core mold is part of the same biological kingdom as mushrooms, says Betty Feng, an associate professor of food science at Purdue University.

The main thing to be concerned about when it comes to ingesting mold is the potential toxins that may be hidden inside, explains Arun Bhunia, a professor of food microbiology at Purdue University

Jeffrey Farber is an adjunct professor of food science at the University of Guelph and has a Ph.D. in food microbiology. He tells Inverse emerging evidence suggests components of food like salt, sugar, and protein can be attractive building blocks for young mold spores looking to settle down. However, more research is needed to confirm exactly what the molds’ relationship is to these tasty chemicals, Faber says.

Mold spores are too small to see with the naked eye. But nonetheless, these spores are always floating through the air, Feng says.

When it comes to passed-down wisdom on whether or not it’s safe to go full-steam ahead with your sandwich construction or fumigate your entire kitchen, there’s much confusion around how to safely eat — or discard — moldy food.

Feng and Farber also say carefully inspecting your produce or bakery goods at the grocery store can go a long way toward not introducing new mold sources into your kitchen.

Mold spots on food can sometimes be so small that it may seem easier to just cut them off and carry on eating the food than to discard an otherwise perfectly good treat.

When it comes to soft or wet foods — like sandwich bread, fruit, or cream cheese — Feng says that simply cutting off the moldy spot isn’t enough to prevent accidentally ingesting the mold. This is due in part to the fact that the mold’s invisible body may be burrowing its way through these types of foods.

“[Mold] growth is usually encouraged by warm and humid conditions,” says Feng. These mold spores “float through the air and they find suitable conditions — which food is very suitable with a lot of nutrients — where they can start and start their growth circle.”

“If bread has mold growing on it I’d say discard it — the whole piece,” advises Feng. She even says that throwing out the entire bag of bread (which may have become a mold spore breeding ground) isn’t necessarily a bad choice either.

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The negative effects of mycotoxins don’t occur through a single ingestion. Instead, those ill effects build up in the body over time, Bhunia says. So even if you feel fine after eating a moldy piece of food, the mycotoxins may still be building up in your body.

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That said, not every mold is toxic or bad for you to eat — take the mold growing on blue cheese for example. But Feng warns that even if you don’t get sick from a mold, you may still have an allergic reaction to the spores — especially if you try to give it a good whiff.

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