There are two types of people: Those who eat the mouldy bread, and those who don't.

Feature image of Monique Bowley and Mouldy Bread from facebook.com/mouldybread.

It was right at the end of my morning toast the other day that I peered down and realised what I thought was a grain, was, in fact, a green spot of mould.

And just like one of those magic eye puzzles where a picture is suddenly revealed, I realised with a blink that the bread had quite a few tiny bits of mould on it. So without further thought, I ate around it.

Shortly after, I poured myself a cup of tea (after sniffing the milk which was past the use-by, too), and, later that day I ate a tub of Greek yogurt that was five days past its use by.  It’s not something I tend to make a habit of, it was just a busy week and I hadn’t been to the shops.

When I laughed about the state of my pantry and fridge to a friend later that day, she almost ran into oncoming traffic. “You CAN’T EAT THAT!” she hissed. “That’s DISGUSTING. Plus, the spores can grow inside of you and you’ll get liver disease.”

Others reacted similarly with turned up noses and sneers. These are the same people that will honk into a piece of blue cheese and drink a 4-year-old bottle of wine with no problems.

Listen, before you cry foul too, I know that health wise, a lot of mould can be hell. Exposure can be really toxic. I’m talking more about our aversion to the little bits on the stuff: spots on hard cheese, salami, bread, crumpets, butter, the jam jar….etc.  I’m talking about cutting the brown bit off an apple and eating the rest, or working around an onion that’s gone a bit weird in the middle or on one side, too.

Mould is a funghi, right? I eat mushrooms and no one flips out at that . Penicillin is a mould, so what’s the big deal? Plus, everyone’s going on about gut bacteria at the moment – drinking keffir and kombucha and ‘live cultures’ in their drinks. Can’t my gut handle a bit of acidophils, bifidus and mouldishness?

Keffir back in production after 3 weeks away :) #keffir #eatfoodnotpoison

A photo posted by @chewbyka on Mar 16, 2016 at 11:46am PDT

We talked about it on the podcast, and were divided into two camps. Kate de Brito and I take a relaxed approach to the words “use-by”.

It was just one of the topics on Mamamia Out Loud. It’s the show with what women are talking about. From celebs, to politics, to pantry moths and more. Listen in itunes or to the full episode, here:

Kate sniffs the milk to see if it’s still okay, scrapes the mould off the tomato paste, and ignores those moth webs in her oats. We both agreed that sour cream can probably go a week past and still be fine.

Mia Freedman, however, is a use-by-date stickler. Those little printed numbers are gospel. And now I’m torn.

A photo posted by KNOWASTE (@we_knowaste) on Feb 24, 2016 at 7:09pm PST

Because of course, I did what anyone would do and googled it. And scientists say there are some cases where it’s fine to cut the mould off but BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE because it will ruin your health and burn your house down and grow a mushroom in your stomach.

So maybe I’m too relaxed with the use-by. But “best-before”? That’s a whole new story – where the date literally means “This food was in its best condition before this date but it’s still okay to eat.”

I’ve stretched best-before dates into years. It’s like Kate De Brito says; what did they do in the depression days? Older generations would never throw out the jam for a bit of a mould. They’d can and bottle, preserve and make do. They’d eat non-perishables whose ‘best-before’ dates had almost faded with age. Australians waste billions of food every year. The stats are off the charts:

And so much of it unnecessary.
Are you a mould-eater?