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Why smelling is not a reliable way to determine whether food is healthy?

Matthew Gilmourmicrobiologist at the British Quadram Institute of Biological Sciences Conversation website It explains why we should not rely on our sense of smell to detect the health of food and its microbial contamination.

“I have to admit that I do too. When I was about to make a sandwich, I took some pieces of chicken out of the fridge and noticed that it was past its expiration date, but I was still suspicious. A member of my family had carelessly torn the packaging and the chickens had been in the fridge for several days without packaging. Wondering if the chickens could still be used, I sniffed them for evidence that they were still usable or spoiled.

I should know better because I’m a microbiologist and I know that germs that can make me sick don’t smell. However, I also try to judge whether food is healthy by smelling it.

Some microbes produce odors as they grow. The positives include the lovely smell of yeast in fresh bread and the negatives include the foul odor associated with gas produced by gut microbes. These gases are produced when microbial populations are growing and multiplying, that is, when microbes convert carbon and other elements into energy sources or building blocks of their molecular structure.

Germs commonly associated with foodborne illness, such as Listeria and Salmonella, cannot be detected by the smell test. Even if they are present, these bacteria are probably present in very small quantities in the food, so that any metabolic action (and then odor production) cannot be detected by our nose.

Even if Listeria produces an odor, the odor resulting from its activity is indistinguishable from the minor odors produced by more abundant microbial species. There are many microbial species in our food that are not dangerous to health.

There is very little chance that the smoked salmon we bought last week has listeria. But there’s no chance that our sense of smell will be able to sift through the smell and detect any sign of Listeria in the run that contains the product.

We’re less likely to smell salmonella from a tomato pulled from the fruit and vegetable drawer of the fridge. If the pathogen is present on tomatoes, it likely entered the field through contaminated water while the tomatoes were growing. Therefore, it is not located on the surface of the tomato, but inside it, and it is not easy to detect its smell.

While it can be difficult to detect the microbial contamination of food by smelling it, the rottenness of food can be detected by smell.

Microbes consume food that has been left for a long time or has been in improper storage conditions, and as a result of their activity, odor is produced. For this reason, it is more appropriate to use the smell test to detect spoiled milk and help reduce food waste.

Funginess is a natural characteristic of some foods (for example, some cheeses). Also, while some fermented foods such as kimchi (Korean pickles) smell, they are not rotten.

For other foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables or milk, I still pay attention to any odors that indicate spoilage, and take the smell as a warning to store that particular food better in the future or to buy as much as I need. .

Some of the causes of foodborne diseases are still unknown to us. While many diseases are caused by bacterial contaminants such as Campylobacter or other microbes mentioned earlier, there are many whose source we still do not know. So, if we’re worried about getting sick from our food, we’re better off spending our energy on keeping it at the right temperature and cooking it for the right amount of time rather than relying on our nose to detect disease-causing germs.

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