[ELI5] How does salt preserve food?
In: Chemistry
Salt preserves food by preventing bacteria from growing.
There are two main ways salt is used to preserve foods: granule form or in brine, which is a salt-and-water solution. Granule form, or dry curing, is one of the most ancient ways of curing meats.
In both methods, salt prevents bacteria from growing, including foodborne pathogens such as salmonella, which can cause food poisoning, typhoid fever and other serious problems. It does this through salt’s interaction with water.
Salt is a disrupter that causes chaos for microbes, confusing their enzymes and breaking their DNA. It mainly accomplishes this via dehydration, removing the water molecules that bacteria need to live and grow.
Salt dehydrates food through osmosis. The salt the salt around the outside of the food draws water molecules out and replaces them with salt molecules until the amount of salt is equal inside and out.
This prevents bacteria from growing, makes the food last longer.
[source](https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/salt-prevent-food-from-spoiling.htm)
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