Wafel tidak akan mengubah Anda menjadi zombie seperti di The Last of Us HBO, tetapi jamur dalam tepung telah membuat orang sakit sejak lama.

di serial HBOTerakhir dari kitaDinamakan setelah video game populer dengan nama yang sama, pasokan tepung dunia terkontaminasi dengan jamur yang disebut cordyceps. Saat orang makan pancake atau makanan lain yang terbuat dari tepung ini, jamur tumbuh di dalam tubuh mereka dan mengubahnya menjadi zombie.

K Dunia makananSaya mempelajari pengaruh pengolahan terhadap kualitas dan keamanan buah dan sayuran, termasuk tepung yang digunakan untuk membuat pancake. Meskipun tidak ada yang akan berubah menjadi zombie karena memakan pancake dalam kehidupan nyata, tepung sering kali terkontaminasi jamur yang dapat menghasilkan mikotoksin yang membuat orang sakit. Namun, penanganan dan memasak dengan benar dapat membuat Anda tetap aman secara keseluruhan.

The Last of Us didasarkan pada pandemi yang membawa dunia ke dalam keruntuhan yang mengerikan.

Seberapa umum jamur dalam tepung?

Orang biasa makan roti yang terbuat dari gandum demi berusia sekitar 14.000 tahun dan budidaya gandum Setidaknya 10.000 tahun. Pada tahun 1882,”Penyakit roti mabukIni pertama kali didokumentasikan di Rusia, di mana orang melaporkan pusing, sakit kepala, tangan gemetar, disorientasi, dan muntah setelah makan roti Jauh sebelum itu, petani Cina melaporkan makan gandum merah muda — tanda utama infeksi jamur yang disebut fusarium Membuat mereka merasa sakit. Jelas bahwa jamur membuat orang sakit dalam waktu yang lama.

Gandum, jagung, beras, dan bahkan buah-buahan dan sayuran dapat terinfeksi jamur saat tumbuh di lapangan. Dalam “The Last of Us”, seorang ahli epidemiologi berpendapat bahwa perubahan iklim menyebabkan jamur bermutasi sehingga dapat menginfeksi manusia. Kebenaran yang disayangkan adalah bahwa jamur telah menjadi lebih banyak masalah dalam beberapa tahun terakhir suhu yang lebih hangat mendorong pertumbuhan mereka.

studi 2017 Lebih dari 90% sampel gandum dan tepung jagung di Washington, D.C., ditemukan mengandung jamur hidup dengan jamur Aspergillus Dan fusarium Jenis jamur yang lazim di tepung terigu. fusarium Tumbuh pada gandum di lapangan dan dapat menyebabkan penyakit tanaman pertanian umum yang disebut Penyakit busuk kepala Fusariumatau kudis.

petani gunakan Beberapa teknik Untuk mengurangi penyakit tanaman yang mematikan ini antara lain dengan melakukan pergiliran tanaman, menggunakan varietas tahan dan fungisida serta mengurangi penyiraman pada saat pembungaan. Setelah panen, mereka menyortir biji-bijian untuk menghilangkan gandum yang terkontaminasi sebelum menggilingnya menjadi tepung. Saat penyortiran menghilangkan sebagian besar gandum yang terkontaminasi, sejumlah kecil jamur masih bisa masuk ke dalam tepung.

Aspergillus merupakan salah satu kapang yang dominan ditemukan pada tepung terigu.

Bunuh mikroorganisme dalam tepung

Kabar baiknya adalah sebagian besar jamur dan mikroorganisme lainnya Meninggal pada suhu 160-170 derajat Fahrenheit (71-77 derajat[{” 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.