Bacteria and Safe Foods: A Guide

I've always been a bit curious about the sanitary benefits of boiling foods. Does it kill all bacteria and make the food safe?

Here is some clarifying information from a New York Times report. "Bacteriathat cause illness inevitably end up on nearly every ingredient we cook with,and even boiling won’t kill all of them.

Boiling does kill any bacteria active at thetime, including E. coli and salmonella. But a number of survivalistspecies of bacteria are able to form inactive seedlike spores. These dormantspores are commonly found in farmland soils, in dust, on animals andfield-grown vegetables and grains. And the spores can survive boilingtemperatures.

After a food is cooked and its temperature dropsbelow 130 degrees, these spores germinate and begin to grow, multiply andproduce toxins. One such spore-forming bacterium is Clostridium botulinum,which can grow in the oxygen-poor depths of a stockpot, and whose neurotoxincauses botulism.

Once they’ve germinated, bacteria multiplyquickly in nourishing stock. They can double their numbers every 90 minutes atroom temperature, every 15 minutes at body temperature. A single germinatedspore can become 1,000 bacteria in a matter of hours, a billion in a few days.

Any activebacteria are killed by holding food for a minute at 150 degrees or above,and botulism toxin is inactivated by 10 minutes at the boil. But quickly reheating a contaminated food justup to serving temperature won’t destroy its active bacteria and toxins..."

Source: NYTimes