Microbes and food
![microbes-and-food.jpg](https://microbiologysociety.org/static/2b4a035c-cc46-4803-9141a9979b324bc2/standard_page_img_8bdeba39460d2afb0e800863c284b98b/microbes-and-food.jpg)
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
Producers
Microbes ferment sugar to make energy for themselves – luckily for us food like bread and yoghurt can be made by microbial fermentations.
Main image: iStock/Dr_Microbe