Q: What happens if we eat bundi ladoos that has fungus on it?

A:Theoretically, you can suffer from mycotoxicosis if you eat food contaminated with fungus. Mycotoxins are toxins (enzymes or proteins) produced by a fungus. Most fungi require oxygen for growth, and are found almost everywhere in extremely small quantities because of their spores, and are most commonly microscopically small. They consume organic matter, wherever humidity and temperature are sufficient, indoors or outside. Where conditions are right, fungi proliferate, grow colonies, and mycotoxin levels become high. Toxins vary greatly in their severity. Some fungi produce severe toxins only at specific levels of moisture, temperature or oxygen in the air. Some toxins are lethal, some cause identifiable diseases or health problems, some weaken the immune system without producing symptoms specific to that toxin, some act as allergens or irritants, and some have no known effect on the human organism. Some mycotoxins hurt other micro-organisms such as other fungi or even bacteria (like penicillin or other antibiotics derived from fungi). Mycotoxins appear in the food chain as a result of fungal infection of the crop. If an infected crop is not eaten by humans, the mycotoxin is still dangerous to human health, because the crop may be given as animal feed to farm animals. Mycotoxins greatly resist decomposition or being broken down in digestion, so they remain in the food chain in meat and dairy products. Even temperature treatments, such as cooking and freezing, do not destroy mycotoxins.