Understanding microbial ecology essential for controlling microbial food spoilage

摘要

As a Professor of Food Hygiene, I have been teaching my students to understand the limitations associated with the determination of total aerobic bacterium levels when used for predicting food shelf life or as quality indicators. It is almost touchingto notice how difficult it is to understand that the so-called 'total bacteria' actually consist of variable bacterial groups. It sounds so nice and simple to determine the total aerobic bacterial counts for estimating food quality.