Pretty much the title.
If the stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve food, why can’t it kill dangerous germs that cause all sorts of different diseases?
In: Biology
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that most food based illness in the developed world isn’t due to bacteria, but norovirus. Norovirus will quite happily move through your stomach to your small intestine where it sets up replicating and irritating your gi tract. Then when it’s done enough damage it exits (in both directions) and gets spread onto every surface in your bathroom when you flush the toilet. Anyone who touches those surfaces can then infect themselves by putting their fingers or something they touch in their mouth, or infect others by failing to wash their hands (with bleach; norovirus largely ignores soap) and then serving/cooking their food.
Well first, stomach acid can kill many germs but not all of them. Second, in some cases of food-borne illness, it’s not the germs themselves that make you sick but toxins created by the germs, and stomach acid doesn’t do anything to those toxins. This is why can’t eat spoiled food even if it’s cooked. Yes, cooking may kill the germs, but it still leaves the toxins that make you sick.
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