Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/04/mold-is-on-the-menu-aspergillus-oryzae-to-be-precise.html
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Up next at 9:00: Florida bans Aspergillus oryzae from all food products. Stay tuned to hear more!
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Interesting. My main issue with the “Beyond Meat” category of foods is the hyperprocessed nature of it. Although there will be howls about GMO with this, it might be rather less mucked about with. I would try it assuming it gets to the point where it is widely available.
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There’s something alive in the yogurt, it’s called benign bacteria…
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There’s always fungi.
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Not that they are mutually exclusive, but I like the idea to use mushrooms to make furniture better.
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Absolutely not mutually exclusive. And fungi possess the biochemical machinery to turn things we cannot usefully consume into products that benefit both us and the earth. I see it as a win-win. (See any of Paul Stamets’ writings.)
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Now, the formerly white fungus is red
This is 紅麹 (べにこうじ beni kōji) in Japanese. However before you get all excited about it, you might take note that for the past two weeks, one of the biggest continuing news stories in Japan (getting even more coverage than the the no-end-in-sight LDP political funds scandal, but still a distant second to any minutiae of news concerning Shohei Ohtani) has been a huge issue with health supplements made from beni kōji by pharmaceutical giant Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals. So far 5 people have died from kidney failure and 157 people hospitalized with kidney problems. Investigations have also started in Taiwan, where the supplement was also sold.
Medical news, Yahoo News, Reuters, AP, etc.
The beni kōji itself is most likely safe, as the current leading hypothesis is that the factory was contaminated by different strain of mold that created toxic compounds in the fermentation. However not suprisingly, consumers are now extremely hesitant about any foods with beni kōji in them.
This is a devastating scandal for Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals, esp. since it’s come to light that it was at least two months between when the company first knew there was a problem and them actually issuing a recall, and within that time it was over a month between when the CEO knew about it and the recall announcement. It remains to be seen if the company will be able to survive this scandal or not.
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