So, imagine you go the store and buy some ingredients to make your world-famous taco recipe. You get the beef, the limes, the avocados and the tortillas and a whole basket of vegetables. But oh no! As soon as you get back to cook you notice you still have all three of three ingredients already in house but something is wrong.

Your old limes are a dark brown and rock hard, your old beef smells horrible and your old avocados are all mushy. Well your food went bad and according to the NRDC, you’re not alone, since 40% of American food spoils prior to consumption. So, what happened?

All three of your ingredients spoiled due to microorganisms. Your limes where likely spoiled by a fungus, your beef by bacteria and your avocado could have been spoiled by either.

This all sounds somewhat like microbiology, and that’s because it. Spoilage is just one part of food microbiology and one of the reasons we need to understand the microbiology behind our food; because we need to eat your world-famous taco recipe.

So what can you do to stop it? Here are a few tips

1. Put things in the fridge! It sounds simple but most people don’t store fruits or vegetables in colder temperatures. This decreases the amount of unwanted microorganism growth.
2. Wash Fruits and vegetables and then dry them prior to storage. Most people only wash food before they eat it. If you wash food right after you buy it will stay fresh for longer.
3. Learn about fruits or vegetables. This sounds silly but, different fruits and vegetables have different optimal storage conditions. Learning which are best and storing food correctly will make it last longer.

Source:

Click to access wasted-food-IP.pdf