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Why you should always toss your expired pancake mix

Let’s be honest. When you come across an expired food item in your pantry, unless it’s from prehistoric times, you probably continue on and eat that item anyway. After all, those dates are just put there as a guideline, right? For most food items the actual risk is pretty low, but when it comes to pancake mix, you might want to think twice. So why not pancake mix? Well… it could kill you. That’s the official report following several case studies examining a number of freaky stories about people who claim they experienced life-threatening symptoms after eating expired pancake mix. One study published in the American Journal of Forensic Medical Pathology covered the story of a 19-year-old man who ate pancakes made from an opened mix that was two years old. After eating the pancakes, the man went into anaphylaxis — a life-threatening allergic reaction, often caused by food, that makes…

Moldy foods that are still safe to eat, according to the USDA

Americans waste more than $160 billion in food every year — yikes! Of course, no one buys food with the anticipation of throwing it in the trash, but once something gets moldy, we have little choice. This might be true of most foods — but not all. According to the USDA, some foods can still be consumed even when mold is visibly present. This handy guide can help you decide if you’re still unsure. Here are 3 foods that don’t need to wind up wasted just because of a little mold: Moldy foods you can still eat 1. Hard salami and dry-cured country hams The USDA says that it’s normal for  these products to have a layer of surface mold. Think about the white coating around certain salamis — this is actually a benign mold that helps cure the meat and prevent harmful bacteria from growing. Just remove the surface,…

The best way to store nearly any type of cheese, according to an expert

If you ever cleaned out the depths of your fridge and found a rock-hard chunk of cheese, you probably wondered what you could have done to prolong its life. Sure, the first step is not forgetting it’s in there. But what else should be done to make sure your expensive fromage stays fresh? Most of us are guilty of leaving cheese in the package it came in or rewrapping it tightly with plastic wrap. It turns out, cheese lovers, we’ve been doing it all wrong. “Wrapping your cheese in plastic for its lifetime in your refrigerator is a mistake,” said Anthony DiPietro of Delallo Foods, and go-to source for all things cheese. “If you’re someone who likes cheese and exploring the world of cheeses, or even if you just buy cheese once in a while, you’re doing yourself a disservice.” “A hard and fast rule is to store any cheese…

Is it safe to tear off the mold and eat the rest of the bread?

Bread. It’s one of those foods that you always like to have at your house, yet it gets moldy so quickly. When you see a loaf start to go bad you just rip off the green stuff and use the rest. All is good, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, that one little circle of moldy bread does ruin the whole loaf. In fact, the United States Department of Agriculture recommends that you toss bread at the first sign of mold. It seems excessive, but it’s true. Studies have shown that mold has long, threadlike roots that can penetrate deep into the entirety of nearly any food it grows on. And mold is nothing to take lightly. The microscopic fungi can cause a wide range of health problems including allergic reactions, breathing problems, stomach problems, and some molds — those that produce the substances known as aflatoxins — can even cause liver cancer.…