Growing Microbes
by Dick Crill P.hD
Mankind has been producing microbial cultured food products for thousands of years. Beer, wine, and bread are the first foods that usually come to mind and are perhaps the most universal cultured foods. Additional foods that involve microbial cultures include yogurt, cheese, sour cream, buttermilk, pickles, summer sausage, sauerkraut, and others.
Microbes have also been cultured on an industrial scale for many years to produce several different alcohols including methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, propanol, butanol and others. In more recent times, microbes have been cultured to produce vitamin C, acetone and many other nutrients and industrial products.
Microbes have also been grown for many years for medical reasons. Many antibiotics are produced by microbes. Also much of the food supplement industry comes from microbes, especially from residue left from wine production.
Our body also grows microbes naturally. When a baby is born the process of nursing provides an inoculation of many different microbes. This happens because a healthy adult already has trillions of microbes in their gut that play essential roles in their health and nutrition. The microbes passed on through breast feeding become part of the gastrointestinal system of the baby and stay for life unless something kills them, which is very common today. Microbes are also spread through human interaction, including, bodily contact, sharing meals, doing laundry, sleeping together, etc.
Today, we also kill lots of undesirable microbes. Cooking food kills both the "good" and "bad" microbes in the food. Tap water is chlorinated in order to eliminate the bad microbes. Antibiotics, food preservatives, bleaches, and many other antimicrobial products are also used for this reason. These practices are very important to control germs and disease, but it is also important to make sure that we keep a healthy balance of the beneficial microbes.
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