Had a conversation with my wife today about the unopened mayo we had sitting in the pantry and it made me think – how does it make sense for a food (for instance mayo) to sit in a 65-70 degree pantry for months and be perfectly fine, but as soon as it’s opened it needs to be refrigerated. In my mind, if something needs to be refrigerated at any point, wouldn’t it always need to be refrigerated? The seal on the unopened product keeps the item safe, and the refrigerator does that when the seal is off? How do those two things relate?
In: 1789
As others have said, pasteurization has been a thing for a long time. We also have gamma ray sterilization used in some instances which is more effective for particular cases (no pathogen can survive its DNA being obliterated), but it also can break down the cells which are part of the food (most everything if not everything we eat is derived from nature to some degree so it still has cells)
That all goes out of the window when it’s opened and the open air brings in new bacteria though
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