While toasting your bread in a toaster oven, some crumbs of bread always fall into the toaster.
These may collect in the toaster and accumulate over time if you do not clean it regularly. Many people wonder if the collected bread crumbs can cause the toaster to become moldy if not cleaned on time.
Bread crumbs do not make your toaster moldy, as this idea is, in fact, a misconception. Reason being that the toaster dries up all the moisture that may have been in these bread crumbs. The absence of moisture in the bread crumbs means mold will not be able to grow on them.
Trying to destroy bread mold already established on bread by toasting is not an effective endeavor. Despite the drying effect of the toaster, its temperature may not be enough to destroy mold.
Nevertheless, cleaning your toaster is still a very important factor in your general health. Even though mold may not grow in it due to regular use, other microorganisms would swiftly take over. Read on as we walk you through the process of keeping your toasters free from mold and other disease-causing organisms.
What Causes Mold in My Toaster?
Mold always transfers through direct or indirect contact with contaminated media. This contact aids the spread of mold spores, which can travel through air or water to reach their target host.
Toasting mold-infested bread causes mold spores to be retained in the toaster oven when you remove your bread. These spores can hang on in the toaster and contaminate any other food material you put into the toaster. To an extent, these spores can spread out of the toaster, resting on other kitchen items thus, exposing you to food poisoning.
Keeping mold-infested bread away from your toaster would prevent your toaster from getting contaminated by mold.
Does a Toaster Make Moldy Bread Fit for Consumption?
A few people may believe that toasting bread with mold could make the bread fit to be consumed. However, this is not true. A toaster does not possess the capacity to kill all the mold present on bread. In fact, toasting your mold-infested bread may worsen the situation by helping release mold spores using moderate toaster heat.
This occurrence, in return, makes the bread more harmful and unfit for consumption, with the higher amount of mold spores generated.
These spores may spread from your toaster to other kitchenware like plates and spoons, thus contaminating the entire environment. As a result, this exposes you to a higher degree of spore infestation and makes you more prone to diseases.
A toaster does not improve the state of moldy bread, nor does it make it okay for consumption. Therefore, bread which has grown mold should be properly disposed of and not consumed under any circumstances.
Is it Okay to Eat Bread Which Has Developed Mold?
Although it can be heartbreaking throwing some pretty expensive bread away after mold has attacked it, you should do so. Some people would rather try to revert the damage by putting the bread into a toaster.
It should be tossed away immediately once bread begins to grow mold, even before the damage gets worse.
As mold attacks bread, it contaminates the bread with toxins that seep deep into the bread. Therefore cutting out parts of the bread that have visible patches of mold doesn’t make it any better. In addition, thread-like roots of mold infiltrate immensely into the bread and are often not visible.
You may develop food poisoning when you consume elevated amounts of toxins called mycotoxins, which get deposited on bread by mold. In addition, moldy bread can cause a variety of gastrointestinal complications and a fever as well. These affect your immune response and hype up your internal functionality.
For individuals with pre-existing immune system conditions, consuming moldy bread can be extremely dangerous. In addition, these toxins from mold can stimulate violent systematic responses from your body.
Consuming moldy bread is an extremely bad idea and should never be undertaken.
What Can I Do With Moldy Bread?
We’ve stated that putting your moldy bread in the toaster is a bad idea. The best thing to do with your moldy bread is to dispose of it properly.
You may think it’s not a bad idea to feed moldy bread to a pet, but it actually is. Moldy bread isn’t fit for the consumption of any organism whatsoever. So, you should keep this as far away as possible.
The best way to usefully dispose of moldy bread is to add them to compost piles. These should be placed at the center of the pile and covered cleanly with grass from your yard.
If you do not have access to a complete compost pile, you could easily wrap the moldy bread in plastic or throw it directly into a trash can.