microbes and food

the microbes associated with our food tend to have a bad name – food poisoning is often in the news.

yet while some make us ill and others can be a nuisance by spoiling our food, without the activities of microbes there would no bread, cheese, beer or chocolate. friend or foe – food microbes are always on the menu.




 

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  food poisoning

  there are probably at least a million cases of microbial food poisoning in the uk every year costing an estimated £1.5 billion a year – how can anything as small as a microbe cause all this trouble?

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  spoilers

  when microbes grow on food it soon beings to smell nasty, look slimy, change colour, taste awful or even get a furry coating and is inedible. find out what’s causing this.

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  producers

  microbes ferment sugar to make energy for themselves – luckily for us food like bread and yoghurt can be made by microbial fermentations.

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main image: istock/dr_microbe