Within the HBO sequence “The Final of Us,” named after the favored online game of the identical identify, the flour provides of the world are contaminated with a fungus referred to as Cordyceps. When individuals eat pancakes or different meals made with that flour, the fungi develop inside their our bodies and switch them into zombies.
As a meals scientist, I research the impact of processing on the standard and security of vegatables and fruits, together with the flour used to make pancakes. Whereas nobody goes to show right into a zombie from consuming pancakes in actual life, flour is usually contaminated with fungi that may produce mycotoxins that make individuals sick. Correct processing and cooking, nonetheless, can typically hold you secure.
How frequent is fungi in flour?
Folks have been consuming bread produced from wheat for roughly 14,000 years and cultivating wheat for not less than 10,000 years. In 1882, “drunken bread illness” was first documented in Russia, the place individuals reported dizziness, headache, trembling palms, confusion and vomiting after consuming bread. Lengthy earlier than that, Chinese language peasants have been reporting that consuming pinkish wheat – a key signal of an infection with a mould referred to as Fusarium – prompted them to really feel unwell. Clearly, fungi have been making individuals sick for a very long time.
Wheat, corn, rice and even vegatables and fruits will be contaminated with fungi as they develop within the area. In “The Final of Us,” an epidemiologist theorizes that local weather change is inflicting the fungus to mutate so it might probably infect people. The unlucky actuality is that fungi have turn into extra of an issue in recent times as hotter temperatures encourage their progress.
A 2017 research discovered that over 90% of wheat and corn flour samples in Washington, D.C., contained dwell fungi, with Aspergillus and Fusarium the predominant sorts of mould in wheat flour. Fusarium grows on wheat within the area and may trigger a typical agricultural plant illness referred to as fusarium head blight, or scab.
Farmers use a number of methods to cut back this devastating plant illness, together with implementing crop rotation, utilizing resistant varieties and fungicides and minimizing irrigation throughout flowering. After harvesting, they kind the grains to take away contaminated wheat earlier than grinding them into flour. Whereas sorting removes many of the contaminated wheat, small quantities of fungi can nonetheless make it into the flour.
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Killing microorganisms in flour
The excellent news is that almost all fungi and different microorganisms die at 160-170 levels Fahrenheit (71-77 levels Celsius). Pancakes are usually cooked to an inner temperature of 190-200 F (88-93 C). Different desserts and breads are cooked to inner temperatures anyplace from 180 to 210 levels Fahrenheit (82-99 C). So, not like in “The Final of Us,” so long as you bake or fry your dough, you’ll have killed the fungi.
The issue comes when individuals eat the flour with out cooking it first, similar to by consuming uncooked cookie dough or “licking the bowl clear.” Each uncooked egg and uncooked flour can comprise microorganisms that make individuals sick. The microorganisms that public well being officers are most fearful about are E. coli and Salmonella, harmful pathogens that may trigger extreme sickness.
Most individuals don’t understand that the flour they purchase on the retailer is uncooked flour that also incorporates dwell microorganisms. Flour is never commercially handled to be suitable for eating uncooked as a result of shoppers virtually all the time prepare dinner flour-based meals. Whereas shoppers may try to heat-treat uncooked flour at dwelling, this isn’t advisable as a result of the flour might not be unfold thinly sufficient to kill all the microorganisms.
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Some fungi and microorganisms can create spores, that are like seeds that assist them survive hostile situations. These spores can survive cooking, drying and freezing. There are even 4,500-year-old yeast spores which were reawakened and made into bread. These fungal spores hardly ever trigger critical sickness in individuals, besides in these with weakened immune techniques.
Chemical substances will be added to meals to cease fungal progress. These components embody sorbates, benzoates and propionates. Nevertheless, you virtually by no means see these components in flour or pancake combine as a result of fungi can’t develop in a dry powder. The fungi both grew on the wheat within the area or on the bread after it’s baked. For that purpose, you may even see these components in bread however not in a powdered combine.
Mycotoxins
The largest threat from fungi isn’t that it’ll develop inside our our bodies, however that it’ll develop on wheat or different meals and produce chemical compounds referred to as mycotoxins that may trigger extreme well being issues. When wheat is harvested and floor into flour, mycotoxins can get combined in.
Sadly, whereas regular cooking can kill the microorganisms, it doesn’t destroy the mycotoxins. Consuming mycotoxins could cause issues starting from hallucinations to vomiting and diarrhea to most cancers or loss of life. A few of the frequent mycotoxins present in grain embody aflatoxins, deoxynivalenol, ochratoxin A and fumonisin B.
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The oldest recognized case of mycotoxin poisoning is recorded as a illness referred to as ergotism. Ergotism was talked about within the Outdated Testomony and has been reported in Western Europe since A.D. 800. It has even been advised that the Salem witch trials have been attributable to an outbreak of ergotism that led its victims to hallucinate, although many have disputed this concept. Wheat is much less seemingly than different grains to have harmful mycotoxins, which is why some have proposed that declining mortality in 18th-century Europe, particularly in England, was as a result of change from a rye-based weight-reduction plan to a wheat-based weight-reduction plan.
Finally, you don’t want to fret about consuming these pancakes. Farmers use many methods to reduce fungal progress and take away moldy grain, and the federal government retains a detailed eye on mycotoxin ranges throughout crop manufacturing and storage. Simply ensure you prepare dinner your bakery merchandise earlier than consuming, and don’t eat something that has began to mould.
