My understanding is that the cells of bacteria and fungi are filled with water enclosed in a balloon. Wouldn’t microwaving then pop the balloons?
In: Biology
Food scientist here. You are partially correct. But microwaving doesn’t make a food safe for two reasons. There are two different types of foodborne illness, infections and poisoning.
Listeria and salmonella are two examoles of infections. They are able to get through your stomach and into your intestines, and from there to other areas of the body where the cells themselves grow and divide.
Botulism is a type of food poisoning caused by the toxin produced by clostridium botulinum. This is literally the same toxin used in Botox.
The first reason microwaving won’t make a bad food safe that, while most of the infectious cells will burst and die, there are some that will make it through. Even in industrial processes, there isn’t ever a guarantee that all the cells get burst. The odds are very slim, but there is always a chance a mutated or super resistant cell will survive to cause problems
The second reason is that the toxins bacteria produce are extremely heat stable. Industrial canning processes, which hold food at 250°F for 30+ minutes, isn’t able to destroy the toxins. There is no way a home microwave could ever achieve that kind of temperature throughout a food product.
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