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/ck/ - Food & Cooking

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9554174 No.9554174 [Reply] [Original]

Why is it safe to eat fermented foods but not rotten foods?

>> No.9554178

Fermentation produces lactic acid. The food isn't going bad, it's actually being preserved.

>> No.9554181

>>9554174
Why is it good to eat wheat but not grass?

Similar things are similar but ultimately different.

>> No.9554229

>>9554174
Why do you not use google?

>> No.9554234

>>9554174
Well rotting is just the breakdown of organic matter. Fermentation is a preservative process, which is the opposite of rotting.

That being said, there are traditional dishes out there that rely on controlled rotting of ingredients.

>> No.9554247

>>9554178
This is the correct answer. The goal of preserving food is to create an environment in which only certain bacteria can grow. In most cases, it's lactic acid bacteria which produce large amounts of lactic acid and as a result, kill all other types of bacteria except for themselves because of the low pH environment.

Rotten foods are a broad category of foods that have started to degrade and become colonized by plenty of bacteria from the air. These bacteria speed up the decomposition process and can produce toxins, odor compounds, sour, rancid compounds, etc. as a result. Some of these toxins are enough to make you feel sick.

>> No.9554258

>>9554234
Fermentation is also a break down of organic material.
Fermentation and rot are both the result of microbes eating food and shitting out something else.
Rot is indiscriminate. It's just any old bacteria eating food and shitting out whatever. That results in something that is basically useless to us.

Fermentation is having a specific type of microorganism (often yeast) eating a specific part of the food (often sugar) and shitting out a specific waste that's still useful to humans (usually alcohol)
If you do it right, then the waste product of the culture kills all other microorganism, which leads to only the good microorganism in abundance.

It's like sculpture vs demolition.
Both take apart a marble slab, but sculpture is precise and demolition is just wanton destruction with random bits going everywhere

>> No.9554720

>>9554258
I mean, it's been answered correctly for most of this thread, but this hits it on the head.

Lactobacillus, cerevisiae yeast, certain molds, etc. acting in an anaerobic environment will ferment the food they're acting on, creating an environment best suited for them (i.e. acidic), and really only them. These microbes are not harmful, and (generally speaking) don't produce overly harmful products.

Rot is indiscriminate, generally meaning spoilage. Yeasts and lactobacillus will almost always be involved, but other microbes, especially aerobic bacteria, will also be present, and basically spew toxins into the food.

In certain alcohols and cheeses, strains of moulds, bacteria and yeast that would normally be considered a fault, if not harmful, can be employed to great effect. These are generally considered to be acquired tastes, and are probably best likened to creating sculpture with dynamite.

>> No.9554926

Fermentation = digestion by beneficial bacteria that produce non harmful byproducts
Rotting = digestion by not necessarily harmful bacteria that produces harmful byproducts

>> No.9554948

>>9554174

If you served your wife/girlfriend rotten foods, you'd never get laid again.