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I have got a large chunk of butter, with some green molds growing on one surface only, with spots that are 1cm in diameter, and only like 3~4 of them total.

the butter itself tastes and smells fine, once i cut off the mold parts.

it is unsalted butter.

It has been sitting in the fridge for few weaks.

so is it safe to eat butter after completely removing the mold parts ?

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  • 6
    Damp fridge? where's the water for the mold coming from? Hopefully not the butter itself. Is this home churned butter? I've never seen mold on the sticks from the store. Apr 21, 2018 at 21:23
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    I’ve never seen mould on butter, but it sounds as though the mould spots may be from handling. Occasionally you see mould on cheese which is clearly from where fingers have touched the surface. Personally I’d either not take the risk at all or discard a generous thickness below the mould, at least half an inch.
    – Spagirl
    Apr 22, 2018 at 12:28

4 Answers 4

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You could theoretically salvage the butter, but it really boils down to mold type. Melting and filtrating the butter will get rid of the mold and create ghee. But filtration will not remove aflatoxins that some types of molds produce.

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    You are correct to say that it comes down to mold type - however the general advice would be "if in doubt, throw it out" very few people will be capable of identifying mold species without some training in fungal identification, and the species can make all the difference between toxins or not!
    – bob1
    May 6, 2019 at 21:01
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Frankly, I would not eat anything with mold on it. It is safe to cut moldy spots off hard cheese (like cheddar) but softer cheeses should be thrown out if they grow mold. I would put butter in the soft cheese category.

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Throw out the entire stick immediately - mold on food means the food has mold roots, which contaminates the food. From the USDA "Molds on Food: Are They Dangerous?":

...you only see part of the mold on the surface of food — gray fur on forgotten bologna, fuzzy green dots on bread, white dust on Cheddar, coin-size velvety circles on fruits, and furry growth on the surface of jellies.

While the FDA article does mention that this is for "heavy" mold growth, it is difficult to determine how deep the mold growth is from the surface level. And it also goes on to mention:

In some cases, toxins may have spread throughout the food.

Throwing it out is the safest bet.

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Eating any form of microbiological organism is not safe. There is an extremely high risk of food poisoning if you eat the butter. The safest option would be to throw it out!

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    "Eating any form of microbiological organism is not safe." That's over-stating it. I eat blue cheese (infected with mould) and beer/wine (which has yeast), all the time. For "extremely high risk" read "small but non-zero risk". Jun 6, 2019 at 14:21

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