What does freezing food do with the expiration date of it?

Question

What does freezing food do with the expiration date of it?

In: 1

Answer 1

Food can spoil in 2 ways

It can become rancid, which is just the chemicals in the food decaying over time. This is how milk spoils and how apples turn brown. Most of the time it’s still perfectly safe to eat rancid food, even if it tastes bad. It is still entirely possible that in the breakdown of rancidification, a toxic chemical is produced. Making cheese is just a controlled rancidification processs.

The other method is bacteria growth. Bacteria in the food eat it and produce toxins as a byproduct of their own metabolism. Making alcohol is just a controlled bacteria growth.

Freezing the food means that there is less energy available to start chemical reactions to cause the rancidification process, and it also means there is less liquid water to allow the bacteria to function.