Mycotoxins and Their Danger

By Terrance Franklin


There comes a time in each and every person's life when we leave the house and start learning the way to reside by themselves. An inevitable element of this quest is leaving food items unprotected in the refrigerator or kitchen pantry for too long, making something that looks like it came from a science fiction movie and smells like it came from a horror movie. What you are witnessing is mold, that may possess some critical consequences on your decision of survival foods.

The reason that mold emits a smell so terrible is mainly because different molds give out various types of chemicals through their metabolic process. Most of these are poisons referred to as mycotoxins. Penicillin, the very first great anti-biotic is a mycotoxin, incredibly fatal to bacteria which it would compete with for food. But additionally, there are toxins affecting people.

One of the most common is a mold referred to as fusarium. Fusarium, like many molds, lives in dark, damp areas which is why it shows up in several grains. Whenever grains are in silage, as they are in large agrobusiness farms, it is the perfect condition for molds such as Fusarium to develop. Studies have shown that almost all corn and an adequate amount of wheat in the US has detectable levels of tricothecenes, the mycotoxin made by fusarium mold.

What to do?

Is it truly so terrible though? What's wrong with a little mold? Well firstly, it is fatal to the point of being used as a form of biological warfare. Tricothecenes have been used repeatedly in the 20th century with harmful results. During the cold war, tricothecenes under the code name 'Yellow Rain' were chosen by the Soviet Union to bring about the deaths of countless numbers in Southeast Asia.

Make no blunder, they are toxins of the most effective variety. Very little amounts have been shown to lead to problems which range from kidney damage to most cancers. Plus they are present in much of the grain consumed nowadays. The ability to identify mycotoxins has only existed ever since the mid 1980s but studies show toxic contamination in food worldwide. For something that can cause consequences on micrograms per day, there are amounts as high as milligrams for each kilogram found in grain throughout the planet.

Your plan to avoid them

As a prepper, there are steps you can take to prevent releasing mycotoxins into your life, ranging from light to intense. Starting up, it is wise to ensure that you keep grains (as well as foods) appropriately. Vacuum sealing and using oxygen absorbers is vital. The next step would be to prevent getting grain from mass manufactured farms. The larger the operations, the more likely it is to keep grain in silage.

And for people ready to take it to the max, the ultimate step is getting rid of grains from the preparations. This is yet another vote for homesteading, food you grow yourself are often fresh. In case your grains get contaminated (or already are available contaminated) storage is not likely to make them better. A certain amount of the toxins can turn a life sustaining staple into a deadly poison.




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