Modern Food Microbiology

Description

Food microbiology is the study of food microorganisms – how we can identify and culture them, how they live, how some infect and cause disease and how we can make use of their activities. Food microbiology provides information on the interaction of food and microorganisms. Microbes are single cell organisms so tiny that millions can fit into the eye of a needle. They are the oldest form of life on earth. Microbe fossils date back more than 3.5 billion years to a time when the Earth was covered with oceans that regularly reached the boiling
point, hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the earth. The field of food microbiology is a very broad one, encompassing the study of microorganisms which have both benecial and deleterious effects on the quality and safety of raw and processed foods. Today this field has become an interesting and challenging subject. The focus of Food Microbiology is on the detection and analysis of food borne spoilage microorganisms. The present book covers important main aspects of interaction between microorganisms, food borne illnesses and food fermentations. This book was written with the major objective of relating interaction of microorganisms and food in relation to methods in food microbiology.