Mold: The Benefits We Forget

Although molds growing unchecked can be harmful to human health, molds that are grown in laboratories for specific purposes have been used extensively for many years in order to improve the quality of life.

Penicillin as we know it today was discovered accidentally when Alexander Fleming saw a plate of Staphylococcus aureus had become contaminated by a blue-green mold. He noted that colonies of the bacteria next to the mold were being destroyed by it; he soon after grew a pure culture of the mold and found that penicillin killed not only Staphylococcus, but many other bacteria that cause disease. He named it penicillin, published the results of his experiment in 1929, and the medical community has been using it ever since.

Molds are also used to make different kinds of cheeses, including bleu cheese. Bleu cheese in particular is rumored to have been discovered by accident and since molds are not generally associated with good food, there is good reason for this assumption. Early cheeses were aged inside caves and these places often contained the perfect conditions for mold to grow in.

Without molds, we would have neither bread nor beer and even butchers inject mold into animals before they butcher them for preservation. Aspergillus oryzae is used in Japan to convert the starch in rice into sugar in order to make the traditional alcoholic beverage of sake. Red yeast rice is also made by being cultivated with a mold called Monascus purpureus and was used as a natural food coloring before the discovery of modern chemical food coloring.

Agriculturally, molds also help to decompose different kinds of natural debris such as taking care of the leftovers from forest fires and begin building a base for new plants and trees to grow on. Decaying organic matter is also eaten by mold and thus they are the natural recyclers of the world. If it is organic in origin and needs to be gotten rid of, overtime mold can accomplish this task.

Something most people outside the medical community don’t realize is that if a medicine’s name has the ending of “mycin”, it was made using mold

Mold only becomes a problem if it begins to inhabit the same places that humans and their domesticated animals inhabit. If they remain in a checked status, they do us next to no harm and as shown here, can even provide civilization with many benefits.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration contractors and
Mold Remediation companies across the united states.