How does bacteria form on meat?

Bacteria are everywhere. There's many many ways bacteria grows in and on meat in particular, because it's an excellent protein source for growth.





Contamination can come from dirty utensils used to cut and prepare the meat, as well as surface tops, cutting boards, ect..


Also, through airborne particles, dirty hands of the person preparing the meat, or even breathing over the meat while it's being prepared. Also, the animal could have bacteria already in it's system, which is more than likely usually the case. Animals and humans have billions of bacteria in our intestinal tract especially. You even have bacteria known as "normal flora" on your skin right now!


Many times, contamination occurs in meat when it is processed in slaughterhouses, because fecal matter from the intestinal tract gets mixed with the meat (sounds gross, but that's where E. Coli comes from, as well as some forms of Serratia)


The FDA and USDA actually run tests on the meat before it is sent out though to make sure it isn't contaminated. They normally do something called a spread plate count or dilution count. This is where they put a certain quantity of meat, grind it up, mix with sterile water in a sterile blender type instrument and add maybe a milliliter of the substance to test tubes of water that have a measured amount of water in it, and it then gets diluted further the same way in about 4 test tubes. The first would be a 1:10 ratio, then 1:100, 1:1000, ect.. Then, usually about a milliliter is taken out from those tubes and put on a petri dish with a special type of nutrient agar for the bacteria to form colonies. After the plates are incubated, they are removed and you count the colonies of bacterial growth. Then they do a mathematical calculation where they take the colonies seen and multiply it by the dilution factor, this gives them the colony formula units. If the CFU is over a certain amount per gram, then it is discarded or recalled. To test for E. Coli in particular, they use something called EMB agar, which is diluted sheep red blood cells. The bacteria is spread onto the petri dish of this agar, and then incubated. If the petri dish has a bright, metallic green colony growth, it is positive for E. Coli.

How does bacteria form on meat?
Most often it's from the slaughtering process. They're careless and get urine and fecal matter on the meat. It's one reason organic is often times better than mass produced meat.
Reply:Any bacteria the grow on meat have to get there from somewhere. Likely, any time you cut a piece of meat, bacteria are present on the knife, or on the cutting board or simply fall out of the air onto the surface.





Make sense?
Reply:Bacteria are present every where in the universe,They can grow on any surface if the conditions are favorable.


MEAT is a good media for any bacterial growth.Because of it s protein and water content bacterial contamination occures very rapidly
Reply:meat is an excellent breeding ground for bacteria if it is not kept a cold temperatures and cooked correctly. The bacterial have plenty of food to eat and and a wet and warm breeding ground.