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A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

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Re: A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

#71

Post by Broken_Hippo »

kebman wrote: post #26
asciimov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an older coworker who used to do this, and had no qualms eating moldy food. He had some advanced biology degrees and worked in a lab. When asked why he ate moldy food, he would reply "Most of the time the mold (some mold type) and is mostly harmless to people. The trouble is knowing what is and isn't ok to eat. Besides, I'm not letting safe food go to waste." On the other hand, I knew a foreign student who disa…

Chicken is notorious for developing bad bacteria when it gets old. I know two people who got badly sick from eating chicken, and so they'll never ever eat it again. I like it though, but I'll never eat it past the expiry date. AFAIK if meat products start smelling, especially ammonium, then it's time to ditch it.

Chicken doesn't need to be bad or even have a smell to make you sick: It merely needs to be improperly stored or improperly cooked. Back when I ate meat, I tended to overcook chicken if I couldn't test the temperature (and preferred it a bit overcooked, honestly).

Re: A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

#73

Post by Broken_Hippo »

Smithalicious wrote: post #45
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #6

My Dad used to recommend removing mold from food. Said they used to do it when he was growing up. My sister the Nurse suggested "Dad, in the old days, people used to die for no reason." So I don't eat moldy stuff any more.

I consider this totally normal. I think it's very wasteful to throw out food over a little bit of localized mold, especially things like bread which can form it very easily. As long as it doesn't smell or taste off and it's not a known dangerous food I eat it. I have never had good poisoning in my life afaik.

Some things are safer than others to cut off, though. Bread, for example: When you see mold on a loaf of bread, it really is better to throw it out because it has already compromised the entire loaf by the time you see it. Bread mold generally won't kill you, but can cause infections and allergic reactions in some folks, especially if their immune systems are compromised.

Re: A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

#74

Post by asd »

asdff wrote: post #23
tempestn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a strawberry about 10 years ago. Beautiful, big, red, unmarred strawberry. I take a bite out of it, and as I pull it away from my mouth I see that the entire inside is filled with the remaining half of a living worm, along with a great deal of what I assume were its excretions. I see this just as the taste hits me. My wife heard the noise I made from across the house and assumed I was being histrionic,…

Harvested some legal cannabis recently and on the advice of some forum users decided to try washing my buds. I'm damn glad I did. It was a three bucket rinse, the first with lime juice in hot water, then hot water, then cold water. I thought it was some hippy bullshit, but I had little to loose. The first bucket was just pitch black by the end of the washing. I dumped out the water straight into the toilet and soot d…

Are you on the West coast of North America? I wonder if the black was from wild fire smoke/ash.

Re: A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

#75

Post by coldpie »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #70
tluyben2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The soft cheeses from france are often quite moldy. I'm not a big fan of them but my family eats them ; the moldier and smellier, the better.

IIRC, all cheese has mold. Some of the mold is safe and/or desirable to eat (blue cheese's blue is mold). But those soft cheeses can grow other mold: If it does this, you have to throw it all out as it could be dangerous. In general, you don't want mold where you didn't expect it.

Sorta. Fresh cheeses, like curds or paneer, don't have significant bacteria or mold colonies, outside whatever natural stuff happens to be on all food. All aged cheeses have bacterial colonies, that's what does the aging, fermenting the milk's sugars into acid and other tasty byproducts. Some cheeses have mold as well, but not all. Usually it's on the surface, and breaks down the milk's proteins which turns it soft. That's why when you slice into brie or camembert, the outside is the softest part: the white, fuzzy mold on the outside has done its work on the proteins there. Blue cheese has holes poked in it where they insert the blue mold spores, to more evenly colonize the entire cheese instead of the outside.

Many cheeses actually benefit from acquiring wild mold colonies. There are ways to tell which molds are "good" and which are "bad," which home cheesemakers can learn. Here[1] is a properly aging cheddar, wrapped in bandages and allowed to mold. The mold gives some flavors, but more importantly dries out the cheese's exterior and acts as a guard to prevent nasty bacterial infections from getting into the "good stuff" in the middle.

[1] https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/cheesemaking-supply-co/ad..., from https://cheesemaking.com/collections/recipes/products/chedda... . More information here https://cheesemaking.com/blogs/learn/how-to-bandaging-chedda... .

Re: A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

#78

Post by flobosg »

gnicholas wrote: post #44

Fun fact: the owner of the Twinkies was a tenured biology professor at Swarthmore College (a top-rated liberal arts college in the US) who left his tenured position after 14 years. It is pretty rare for folks to leave tenured posts in academia, given the decent pay, extraordinary job security, and relative enjoyability of the work. https://colinpurrington.com/about/ https://www.nature.com/articles/nj7425-627a

He also mantains some great guides e.g. on scientific poster design[1] and keeping a lab notebook[2]. I remember he even tested the solvent resistance of different pen inks, but cannot find the link.

EDIT: Found it in a previous version (https://web.archive.org/web/20181112011236/http://colinpurri...).

[1]: https://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design/

[2]: https://colinpurrington.com/tips/lab-notebooks/

Re: A disturbing Twinkie that has, so far, defied science

#80

Post by munificent »

sharkweek wrote: post #5

Was at a friend’s house in like middle school or something. Went to get a big glass of milk from the fridge after playing outside. Pour into glass, don’t pay close attention, take a big swig and my mouth fills with curdling milk that my friends mom was going to use for baking or whatever you’d use curdled milk for. Still vividly remember the texture and the taste... so disgusting.

Back when my daughter was an infant, I got up for one of those late night feedings. The goal was to not fully wake myself up, so I kept all the lights off. But since I was up anyway... why not have a little midnight of that leftover birthday cake on the counter?

I cut a slice in the dark kitchen and took a big bite. Why does this cake taste exactly like bleu cheese? OH SHIT.

Turned on the light and discovered I was eating cake covered in giant blotches of blue-black mold. It took a long time to get the taste out of my mouth.

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