I understand that bacteria makes the food rotten (side note is this in all cases?) but how does the bacteria get there in the first place? It cant just show up in rotten food. Is it a part of the plant/animal it came from or is it a result of food processing? If it comes from plants/animals then does the bacteria harm the plant/animal it originally came from when it was alive? Is it produced by the original animal/plant or is it something the animal picks up in the environment?
In: Biology
Hey, non-biologist here with little knowledge about what you are asking.
I think it’s all a matter of the *amount* of a given bacteria you are eating. If you eat a slice of salami, you ARE eating bacteria…including some that could make you sick. But not much of it. If you let it sit on the counter at room temperature for 3 days, the amount of bacteria has had time to be greatly increased. Possibly to the point that your body can’t fight it off quickly and you get sick, die, etc…
No matter what, though, you are always consuming bacteria. We just try to keep it to levels our bodies can beat back.
Bacteria are pretty much everywhere. In all organisms, in the soil, in the air, everywhere. Most of them are pretty harmless, but if you give them enough space to grow in the food, they can either produce toxins that make us sick, or they simply overwhelm out protective mechanisms and then infect our guts.
It’s in the air around you all the time. Or, it’s on your hands or utensils. Once it lands someplace it can grow and thrive, it does just that.
It’s always there, waiting, watching, adapting. Bacteria play the long game. Everything dies in the end, and they’ll make damn certain that when it does their distant descendants will be ready to consume it.
Animals and plants contain bacteria, but these are kept in check by a variety of barriers like impenetrable walls and vigilant immune systems. After death, these processes start to break down, and the bacteria are given access to the lovely digestible parts of the body.
Bacteria also come from the environment. They’re everywhere, including in the air, so sterilising the food and then leaving it out will still cause decay eventually.
Also for the record a lot of the mould you see on rotten food is fungus, not bacteria.
Bacteria (and fungus and mould for that matter) is all over the place. The thing about food is, just like we eat food, so do the bacteria, mould, fungus, etc.
What happens when food rots, is that the bacteria etc. are rapidly multiplying and eating the food. They’re able to multiply really quickly because there’s so much food there for them.
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