Can you still eat the moldy part of banh chung?

Master, Doctor Nguyen Van Tien, Center for Nutrition Education and Communication, National Institute of Nutrition advises:

When it comes to food poisoning, people often think only of toxins in food and the role of pathogenic bacteria, rarely mentioning molds and their toxins. The truth is that diseases caused by mycotoxins are not small.

Nowadays, science has proven that if we eat food contaminated with mold, we can also get dangerous diseases. The disease can occur in the form of acute poisoning, but most of the time it is chronic poisoning due to the body gradually accumulating small amounts of mold and mycotoxins.

It is estimated that approximately 40% of known mold species can produce toxins. Although different, they are more or less dangerous to human health. Fungal toxins are all toxic. Their toxicity levels are also different. Therefore, when they enter the body, they cause different diseases.

People wrap banh chung for Tet. Photo: Pham Cong

Less toxic types or small doses of mycotoxins only cause mild poisoning, with patients experiencing vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, etc. However, mycotoxins accumulate in the body over time, leading to serious and dangerous diseases such as liver cancer caused by aflatoxin, kidney failure caused by ochratoxin, ovarian cancer caused by fumonisins, etc.

Chung cakeAlthough delicious and nutritious, if it has turned sour and moldy, it is dangerous to eat. Due to its high humidity and rich nutrients, banh chung is a suitable environment for mold to grow. Therefore, if left for a long time, it is easy to get moldy. From the outer layer of leaves, mold grows inside, spreads and spoils the cake.

Under the action of amylase enzymes of some molds, starch converts glucose into ethyl alcohol, causing the cake to become crumbly where the mold grows and have a spicy, pungent alcohol smell. Some other mold strains have enzymes that can ferment glucose, maltose, forming gluconic acid, fumatic acid... causing the cake to sour.

More frighteningly, some types of mold secrete toxins to people who eat them, including molds of the Aspergllus and Penicillium families. Therefore, we should be careful with moldy banh chung.

For cakes that are heavily moldy, sour, crumbly, bitter, etc., your family must resolutely throw them away. For cakes that are just a little moldy on the outside, we must also cut them wide around, take only the intact part of the cake, steam or fry carefully before eating. This is to ensure food safety for the family.