Why can bacteria adapt to antibiotics, but not adapt to environmental things like heat or acids/soaps (Salmonella as an example)?

Question

Edit: I’ve had a lot of fun reading all of your analogies

In: 64

Answer 1

Antibiotics rely on interacting with something very specific in the bacteria. If that specific part changes a little bit, by, for example, mutation, the antibiotic might not work anymore, and that lets the mutated bacteria replicate, which creates a resistant strain.

Using acid, heat, soap, fundamentally breaks everything that bacteria are made of. To make bacteria resistant to that you’d need to change not just one specific part, but almost everything about the bacteria.