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Have you ever wondered is there a better way to keep your food from spoiling? There is! To keep your food as fresh as possible, you’ll need to understand why its spoils in the first place and what factors you’ll need to take into consideration. Food spoilage is almost always caused by bacteria. They’re too small to be seen and they’re everywhere, which means often, they’re unavoidable.
What are Spoilage Bacteria and How Do They Spoil Our Food
Spoilage bacteria are a type of bacteria that lives, breeds, and feeds on food. The good news is that the specific bacteria that live on your food is there when you buy it and isn’t harmful at all. We ingest hundreds of thousands of microbes a day and we don’t even notice. This is because at its freshest is when bacteria are at their lowest numbers.
The bad news is that bacteria are a lot like us. They need nutrients to survive, and they typically get those nutrients from our food. A few hundred bacteria snacking on our lunch isn’t going to hurt us or even make a size-able difference in our food that we’ll notice, but the longer we leave our food, the more they’ll reproduce. Bacteria reproduce by multiplication. They split themselves from one organism into two. Then, those two bacteria do the same thing and split into four. Those four will split into eight. The longer the food exists, the more bacteria will be reproduced on your food. Up to hundreds of thousands of bacteria feeding on your food causes it to break down even faster, and this is where spoilage starts.
Oddly enough, bacteria have tastes just like we do. They tend to favor foods that are rich in proteins. This means they’re likely to reproduce more rapidly on different types of animal products, like poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy.
Sure, they’ll still spawn on foods without high protein like fruits and vegetables, but they won’t reproduce as quickly. Leave both a piece of fruit and a piece of meat out for a week, and the meat will be unrecognizable. The fruit will be bruised, a little soft, but still intact and edible.
The Difference Between Spoiled Food and Hazardous Food
No, they aren’t the same thing. Believe it or not, spoiled food isn’t always dangerous to eat. Food poisoning is a sickness caused by food being contaminated by bacteria, but not spoilage bacteria. Spoiled food can make you sick, but only if you’re queasy and sensitive to textures, smells, and unpleasant flavors.
In fact, spoilage bacteria aren’t harmful at all. In certain parts of the world and centuries before we created modern solutions to food preservation, it was a privilege to be able to throw out food that’s just past fresh. Often seasonings and dressings were used to mask the less-than-savory tastes that come from food on the edge of spoiling.
What you should be worried about aren’t spoilage bacteria but pathogens. Food pathogens, like the ones in food poisoning, can cause both sickness and death. Unlike spoilage bacteria, pathogens are carried over to the food by some form of contact and infect it. Examples of common pathogens include E. coli or salmonella.
So how do you tell the difference? It’s both easy and not. Pathogens and spoilage bacteria don’t act the same. Bacteria will break down your food and pathogens won’t. Any slightly off smells or change in texture is always caused by your spoilage bacteria. If you can get around that, it’s safe to eat. Pathogens, on the other hand, you won’t be able to see or notice as they don’t change your food in any way which is what makes them so dangerous. They’re virtually impossible to detect by the naked eye.
How to Manage Your Microbes
Now that you know what’s causing your food to spoil, how do we fix it? Well, remember when I said bacteria are a lot like humans because they have tastes just like us? Turns out, they’re just as picky about their environment, too. For bacteria to begin reproducing to undesirable amounts, your food will need to meet a couple of requirements first.
First, it needs to be food. Bacteria are everywhere, sure, but the bacteria that break down your food is a lot different from the bacteria that lives on our hands. Second, you need oxygen. Bacteria need oxygen to survive just like we do. Eliminate your oxygen, you’ve eliminated your bacteria problem! Unfortunately, we need oxygen and it’s not that easy to eliminate, so you can cross oxygen off your list of things to manage to keep your food from spoiling.
Fortunately, there are three other things you can add to help prevent (or, at least, slow) food spoilage: temperature, time, and moisture.
Temperature
There’s a reason you have a fridge, and it’s not just to keep your ice cream and Jello from melting. Refrigerators don’t just exist to keep your cold food cold; they also help your food keep longer. Bacteria are temperature-sensitive and won’t grow or duplicate in temperatures that are too cold or too hot. That’s why when we put our leftovers in the fridge, they’re still good to eat the next day, and why it’s so important to cook your meat at the right temperature.
Putting your food in the refrigerator slows the reproduction of bacteria. It won’t prevent spoilage entirely, but it’ll slow down the process enough that the food will still be good by the time you eat it. Opting for the freezer instead slows the bacteria so much, they stop producing entirely if your freezer is below 0°F. That’s why it’s recommended to freeze your food if you’re not going to eat it within the next couple of days.
Be mindful, though. As soon as you remove your food from the fridge, it’ll begin reverting to its optimal temperatures and bacteria will begin reproducing again.
These optimal temperatures are called the temperature danger zone. This zone is between 41F and 140F and are temperatures at which bacteria will thrive. Suffice to say, you’ll want to avoid storing your food at these temperatures if you want to protect it from spoilage.
Similarly, to refrigerating and freezing your food, keeping it hot (above 140F) can also keep bacteria from multiplying. Heating your food above 165F can even kill bacteria!
Time
We’re all familiar with the rush from the grocery store to home, hoping our ice cream doesn’t melt and our milk doesn’t spoil. In the grocery store, our food is kept at desirable temperatures, but as soon as we’re in the car, it’s a race against time. The longer our food isn’t suitably protected and remains within the temperature danger zone, the more bacteria are multiplying and the faster it’s going to begin spoiling. As soon as you get home from the store, make sure to store all your food properly or consume it as soon as possible. Know the limits of your food and know how long you have until it begins to go bad.
Moisture
The final thing you can control is moisture. Staying in theme, bacteria need water just like us. Moisture-rich foods are going to spoil quicker than foods that don’t for this very reason. It’s okay to leave dry foods like pasta, beans, and cereals sitting out and within the temperature danger zone because it’s unlikely they’ll be crawling in enough bacteria to make a size-able difference. Dried foods will keep longer and are a staple to kitchens everywhere.
While you can buy foods without moisture, you can also remove moisture from your foods. Drying your fruits or curing your meats will give them a longer shelf-life and is a practice that’s been around for centuries. Without water to live off, bacteria will die of dehydration.
Conclusion
There are a ton of ways to prevent your food from spoiling, but it’s never a permanent solution. Practicing good buying and storing habits is essential, but bacteria will eventually begin multiplying at some point or another. Knowing when your food will spoil and eating it beforehand is the single most important thing you can do to prevent any loss of texture and taste quality.
Worried about getting it wrong? Freshly Fridge is dedicated to keeping your food fresh, prolonging your food’s life up to 50% longer than regular storage methods. With Freshly Fridge’s use of a 100% natural mineral that traps contaminated particles, you’ll never have to worry about your food going bad before you can eat it again.
