Cheese Crystals

White spots are good: are you throwing away a perfectly good cheese?

The funny thing about being a food scientist, is that before meeting me, most people have never even heard of my field. Yet, almost instantaneously after pleasantries, I am bombarded with any, and every food-related question they’ve ever had. My phone has become an emergency helpline for all food-related inquiries.

I’m pretty certain I spend 50% of my day answering questions from family or friends on whether or not food is safe to eat. There was a call from an old roommate who hard boiled eggs at night, forgot about them, and only put them in the refrigerator when she realized her mistake the next morning.

A countless number of questions about meat being safe to eat after sitting out at room temperature. Is it safe if it was only sitting out for two hours? Four hours? Overnight‽ Please, I beg you, stop leaving meat out on the counter! My advice is to never chance it with questionable meat. Risking your health is just not worth it, unless you enjoy nausea and explosive diarrhoea.

There is however, one mistake I see people make over and over again: throwing out perfectly delicious cheese that they mistake has mould growth. As a Wisconsinite, this just breaks my cheese-clogged heart, so let me introduce you to crystallization in…