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It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

(www.thephcheese.com)
406 points ilikepi | 1 comments | 31 Mar 25 14:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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xattt ◴[31 Mar 25 15:20 UTC] No.43536057[source]▶
Tangential, but I recently noticed that natamycin, an antifungal agent, is being used in packages of shredded cheese as a preservative.

I was a little taken aback on seeing it, given that antibiotic stewardship has been pushed so much in the last decade.

I realize that natamycin is an antifungal and not an antibiotic, and that mechanisms of developing resistance are likely different between eukaryotes and prokaryotes. However, I’m still somewhat concerned what long-term low-level exposure will mean.

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foxyv ◴[31 Mar 25 19:23 UTC] No.43538753[source]▶
I stopped buying pre-shredded cheese a decade ago. Block cheese is cheaper, lasts longer, and cooks better. Pre-shredded is just worse in every way aside from convenience. Using a cheap rotary grater like they have in restaurants makes this almost a non-issue.
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m463 ◴[31 Mar 25 19:39 UTC] No.43538957[source]▶
anything shelf-stable, hydrogenated peanut butter, highly processed milk, etc

I'm starting to wonder if

  convenience = 1/healthy
hopefully not bananas though.
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josephg ◴[31 Mar 25 19:56 UTC] No.43539150[source]▶
My partner read a book on food recently. They made an obvious point I’d never thought of before: Food is eaten in our stomachs by bacteria. If the bacteria in our stomachs can’t (or won’t) eat something, that means it’s not digestible. That means it’s not food.

If something is shelf stable, that’s because the bacteria can’t or won’t eat it. If bacteria doesn’t want to eat something, it’s not food. And you probably don’t want it in your stomach.

Some things are shelf stable by physically keeping the bacteria out of it (eg canned food). That seems fine. But how do they make shelf stable cheesy / creamy products? Bacteria loves cheese. They do it with weird additives and substitutes that - by design - bacteria hates. But that also means our bodies can’t really eat it either - since we use the same bacteria in our stomach to digest things.

Plenty of healthy things are convenient. Like, apples! But healthy food is rarely shelf stable. Almost by definition.

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1. askvictor ◴[31 Mar 25 20:10 UTC] No.43539323[source]▶
Generally you're either killing _all_ of the bacteria the sealing the product to prevent new ones entering, or creating an environment that's too hostile for them to live (environments high in salt, sugar, acid, or fat, or low in moisture, all make achieve this)

Also, our stomach is full of acid, the purpose of which is to kill bacteria. Later on, in the intestine, you have a colony of microbes.

Pickled or fermented food is very healthy, and shelf stable. We've been doing that for millenia to preserve food.

It's not as simple as you suggest.