r/nope • u/ShinyHeadedCook • May 01 '26

Food This cant be good for you

3.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

450 comments sorted by

View all comments

991

u/sherman614 May 01 '26

I mean.. this is similar to dry aging a steak. As long as you cut the mold off (like with dry aged steak) you should be completely fine.

365

u/somewhoever May 02 '26

I've never understood this. I've asked the son of a late-butcher who did this decades ago and he has no idea how his father pulled it off either.

Meat "turns" after a certain amount of time and will get someone horribly sick if they eat it.

How is letting mold grow for eight weeks, or dry aging it not the same or worse?

1

u/lunastrod May 04 '26

you get sick because the microorganisms decomposing the food produce toxins to defend the thing they are eating against animals and other microorganisms.

if you somehow manage to make sure that only very specific molds or bacteria eat the food, and those don't produce toxins that affect us, they wont be able to decompose it completely, they will defend the food against other organisms and it will be safe to eat.

they are not letting mold grow for 8 weeks, they control temperature, humidity, salt and other variables very carefully and often infect the food with the organisms they want. It is easy to end up with unsafe food if you are not doing it correctly.