We don’t usually get sick from eating fermented foods like kefir and Kimchi, and it is known that there are some health benefits from eating them for our gut health. BUT we often get sick from drinking spoiled milk or eating rotting meat and vegetables. What is the difference between food being “fermented” and food being “spoiled”?
In: Biology
True ELI5: **The difference is what little critters are eating the food, and whether their poop is delicious or poisonous.**
Bacteria and microbes aren’t all one thing. There are hundreds of species. Some are harmless or even change food in tasty ways, while other species can make you very sick or poop out chemicals that can make you very sick.
* Yeast east sugar and pees alcohol, so when you “ferment” beer, you’re deliberately adding the yeast microbes because you want them making your sugary grain water into alcoholic beer. When you make cheese, or soy sauce, or anything else fermented, you’re deliberately adding a microbe whose poop you want to eat.
* Other microbes like botulinum poop toxic garbage, so when *they* eat your food and poop in it, we call that food “spoiled” because it’s sickening rather than better-tasting.
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