Why does salted pork not spoil even though it is exposed to bacteria?

Question

bacteria causes food to spoil and meat to rot

Answer 1

bacteria need certain conditions to grow.
if the food is too salty, (or too acid or too dry) they can't reproduce.
so the meat doesn't go bad.

Answer 2

When salt is added to a meat, the salt is distributed equally throughout all cells diffusing along the concentration gradient and therefore being a consistent amount throughout the meat. When this happens, each cell can only contain a certain number of molecules, and so when water diffuses through osmosis, the salt occupies some of the space the water would have otherwise used. Because of this, salt has a dehydrating effect as the necessary amount of water is not supplemented so each cell (for compatible needs of bacteria). Because the bacteria cannot survive in the salty conditions, it is denatured (a term for the 'dying' of cells). Therefore the meat can be exposed to the bacteria but the bacteria cannot survive in the inhospitable environment and so the meat does not spoil.

Hope this helps! :D

Answer 3

Oh, I totally read about this somewhere in some nasty book about parasites and now I can't remember where I read it. I got the book Fearsome Fauna off the shelf and it doesn't have it...must have been somewhere else.

It seems like the salt permeates the bacterial walls and kills the bacteria. Or maybe it dehydrates the bacteria through osmosis (the salt level outside the bacteria is too high, so water from the bacteria goes out to help balance out the salinity, and it parches the bacteria.)

It does work--I know that. I just don't know if that's why.

Answer 4

No, the salt provides an unlivable environment since the salt will dehydrate the bacteria when they try to ingest the meat. This is why curing is as good as cooking.

Answer 5

I understand it is believed that salt forms a 'barrier' through which bacteria cannot penetrate, thus preserving the meat....

Answer 6

The salt preserves.