> throw out food over a little bit of localized mold, especially things like bread which can form it very easily

You trust too much on human sight. The part that is visible is visible because the colony has grown to immense density and it's also the part that serves reproduction (the body of mold that sits on the surface spreading spores) : if you can see a spot of mold on the bread, there is, without a doubt, a lot of mold you are not seeing elsewhere on the bread, just not as much concentration as that patch of mold.

Now, if you're young, healthy and don't stumble upon a particularly toxic variety of mold, the danger isn't particularly manifest. But the risk is not worth it still.

>"We don't recommend cutting mold off of bread, because it's a soft food," says Marianne Gravely, a senior technical information specialist for the United States Department of Agriculture. "With soft food, it's very easy for the roots [of the mold], or the tentacles, or whatever creepy word you want to use, to penetrate" deeper into the food.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/21/523647669/is...

Our eyes are not microscopes. The parts you think are safe aren't.

Some things are safer than others to cut off, though. Bread, for example: When you see mold on a loaf of bread, it really is better to throw it out because it has already compromised the entire loaf by the time you see it. Bread mold generally won't kill you, but can cause infections and allergic reactions in some folks, especially if their immune systems are compromised.

As soon as there is mold it goes. I'm not risking anything.