Is cheese okay to eat if it doesn't have mold on it?

Answer 1

Mold growth on soft cheese is not considered safe to eat, unless it is intended to be there - as in brie.

For hard cheeses - like cheddar and Swiss - conventional wisdom has said that cutting out the cheese within one inch of the visible mold will make the rest of the cheese edible.

Answer 2

Yes, but not the bad or poisonous kind! The veins in blue cheese have cultures of the mold penicillium, which is a fungus that produces the antibiotic penicillin!

Also, some cheeses have mushrooms mixed into them which are also a type of fungus.

Answer 3

If it's within use-by date, all cheese is safe. After useby date, no soft cheese (such as cream cheese) is safe, but you may still be able to use hard cheeses (such as cheddar), so long as it looks ok, smells the same and no mold is growing on it.

Answer 4

If you have an allergy to penicillin, then obviously avoid blue cheese, Stilton, Gorgonzola, and blue brie. If you do not, then they are perfectly fine to eat. Most cheeses are made with either a bacterial or fungal culture, and those microorganisms stay in the cheese when its prepared. Brie is covered in white mold, that is edible, for example.

(One note: the mold in the various blue varieties of cheeses is a species of Penicillium, but it's not the one used to produce the drug penicillin. You could be allergic to the mold and not be allergic to penicillin. Also, random mold on your cheese, as opposed to those intentionally introduced in its production, could be any of a bunch of different species and is best not eaten.)

Answer 5

Some cheese do have fungi in them, however, they are not the bad kind. Blue cheese is an example that has fungi.