Zombi humanoide endogámico del programa de televisión “The Last of Us”. Crédito: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Los gofres no te convertirán en un zombi como en The Final of Us de HBO, pero el hongo en la harina ha estado enfermando a la gente durante mucho tiempo.
en la serie de HBOEl último de nosotrosEl nombre del fashionable videojuego del mismo nombre, el suministro mundial de harina está contaminado con un hongo llamado cordyceps. Cuando las personas comen panqueques u otros alimentos hechos con esta harina, los hongos crecen dentro de sus cuerpos y los convierten en zombis.
okay mundo de la comidaEstoy estudiando el efecto del procesamiento en la calidad y la seguridad de las frutas y verduras, incluida la harina utilizada para hacer panqueques. Si bien nadie se convertiría en un zombi por comer panqueques en la vida actual, la harina a menudo está contaminada con hongos que pueden producir micotoxinas que enferman a las personas. Sin embargo, el manejo y la cocción adecuados pueden mantenerlo a salvo en normal.
The Final of Us se basa en una pandemia que está llevando al mundo a un horrible colapso.
¿Qué tan común es el moho en la harina?
La gente solía comer pan hecho de trigo por amor aproximadamente 14.000 años y cultivo de trigo 10.000 años por lo menos. En 1882,”Enfermedad del pan borrachoSe documentó por primera vez en Rusia, donde las personas reportaron mareos, dolores de cabeza, manos temblorosas, desorientación y vómitos después de comer pan. Mucho antes de eso, los campesinos chinos informaron haber comido trigo rosado, un signo importante de infección con un moho llamado fusarium Los hizo sentir enfermos. Está claro que los hongos enferman a las personas durante mucho tiempo.
El trigo, el maíz, el arroz e incluso las frutas y verduras pueden infectarse con el hongo mientras crecen en el campo. En “The Last of Us”, un epidemiólogo postula que el cambio climático está causando que los hongos muten para que puedan infectar a los humanos. La desafortunada verdad es que los hongos se han convertido en un problema mayor en los últimos años. temperaturas más cálidas fomentar su crecimiento.
estudio 2017 Se encontró que más del 90% de las muestras de harina de trigo y maíz en Washington, D.C. contenían hongos vivos con Hongo Aspergillus Y fusarium Tipos de moho predominantes en la harina de trigo. fusarium Crece en el trigo en el campo y puede causar una enfermedad común de las plantas agrícolas llamada Tizón de la cabeza por Fusariumo sarna.
los agricultores utilizan Múltiples técnicas Para reducir esta devastadora enfermedad de las plantas, incluye la rotación de cultivos, el uso de variedades resistentes y fungicidas y la reducción del riego durante la floración. Después de la cosecha, clasifican el grano para eliminar el trigo contaminado antes de convertirlo en harina. Si bien la clasificación elimina la mayor parte del trigo contaminado, pequeñas cantidades del hongo aún pueden ingresar a la harina.
Aspergillus es uno de los mohos dominantes que se encuentran en la harina de trigo.
Mata los microorganismos en la harina.
La buena noticia es que la mayoría de los hongos y otros microorganismos Muere a 160-170 grados Fahrenheit (71-77 grados[{” attribute=””>Celsius). Pancakes are typically cooked to an internal temperature of 190-200 °F (88-93 °C). Other cakes and breads are cooked to internal temperatures anywhere from 180 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit (82-99 °C). So, unlike in “The Last of Us,” as long as you bake or fry your dough, you’ll have killed the fungi.
The problem comes when people eat the flour without cooking it first, such as by consuming raw cookie dough or “licking the bowl clean.” Both raw egg and raw flour can contain microorganisms that make people sick. The microorganisms that public health officials are most worried about are E. coli and Salmonella, dangerous pathogens that can cause severe illness.
Most people don’t realize that the flour they buy at the store is raw flour that still contains live microorganisms. Flour is rarely commercially treated to be safe to eat raw because consumers almost always cook flour-based foods. While consumers can also attempt to heat-treat raw flour at home, this isn’t recommended because the flour may not be spread thinly enough to kill all of the microorganisms.
Some fungi and microorganisms can create spores, which are like seeds that help them survive adverse conditions. These spores can survive cooking, drying and freezing. There are even 4,500-year-old yeast spores that have been reawakened and made into bread. These fungal spores rarely cause serious illness in people, except in those with weakened immune systems.
Chemicals can be added to food to stop fungal growth. These additives include sorbates, benzoates and propionates. However, you almost never see these additives in flour or pancake mix because fungi can’t grow in a dry powder. The fungi either grew on the wheat in the field or on the bread after it is baked. For that reason, you may see these additives in bread but not in a powdered mix.
It might be best to leave that moldy bread alone.
Mycotoxins
The biggest risk from fungi is not that it will grow inside our bodies, but that it will grow on wheat or other foods and produce chemicals called mycotoxins that can cause severe health problems. When wheat is harvested and ground into flour, mycotoxins can get mixed in.
Unfortunately, while normal cooking can kill the microorganisms, it doesn’t destroy the mycotoxins. Eating mycotoxins can cause problems ranging from hallucinations to vomiting and diarrhea to cancer or death. Some of the common mycotoxins found in grain include aflatoxins, deoxynivalenol, ochratoxin A and fumonisin B.
The oldest known case of mycotoxin poisoning is recorded as a disease called ergotism. Ergotism was mentioned in the Old Testament and has been reported in Western Europe since A.D. 800. It has even been suggested that the Salem witch trials were caused by an outbreak of ergotism that led its victims to hallucinate, though many have disputed this idea. Wheat is less likely than other grains to have dangerous mycotoxins, which is why some have proposed that declining mortality in 18th-century Europe, especially in England, was due to the switch from a rye-based diet to a wheat-based diet.
Ultimately, you don’t need to worry about eating those pancakes. Farmers use many techniques to minimize fungal growth and remove moldy grain, and the government keeps a close eye on mycotoxin levels during crop production and storage. Just make sure you cook your bakery products before eating, and don’t eat anything that has started to mold.
Written by Sheryl Barringer, Professor of Food Science and Technology, The Ohio State University.
This article was first published in The Conversation.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.onunoticias.mx ’
