If meats are kept at a low temperature to the point that bacteria can’t form to dangerous levels, how is it that there is still a shelf life for frozen meat?
In: Biology
I’m so glad you asked this! Because you asked this, you are now smarter and less prone to food poisoning than most adults out there. First of all, your freezer/refrigerator is not a time machine. Neither is it a cryo chamber designed to preserve anything you put in it until 2140.
Now onto the answer. Just because something is frozen, that doesn’t mean bacteria can’t grow. Some bacteria can be extremely resilient and while most of the bacteria may have stopped growing in your freezer, some bacteria is still growing albeit at a very slow rate and since bacteria grows by doubling itself over time, that means the bacteria growth can sort of snowball into spoilage. Not only that but did you know that every time you store something in your freezer, you’re also storing a mew batch of bacteria into your freezer. If bacteria were like soldiers, you just sent them back up. That’s why its very important to clean your freezer and refrigerator every 6 months. Congrats! You’re now smarter than my father, who refuses to believe that food can still spoil in the freezer!
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