Actually that logic is broken. A preservative need not make life impossible for all organisms. Hops preserve beer to some extent by making life hard for some unwanted organisms. But hops do not kill everything (of course, because you intend to drink the beer). But as I said in my correction, salt works as a preservative through a drying effect, which I did not previously realize.
If you read the whole thread, I would not have to spell this out. These are preservatives (source):
honey
salt
garlic
sugar
ginger
sage
rosemary
sage
mustard
mustard seed
cumin
black pepper
turmeric
cinnamon
cardamom
cloves
vinegar
citric acid
lemon/lime juice
They generally work by killing/repelling/deterring unwanted microbes. Before yesterday, I thought salt worked similarly to the others. Yesterday I learnt that salt exceptional and only functions as a preservative due to a different mechanism (drying effect).
Your logic is nonsense. To claim that because substance X does not kill /everything/, it cannot be a preservative – it’s broken logic. Nothing on that list of food preservatives kills or deters every microbe. Of course they selectively mitigate “the bad bacteria” (but note it’s a bit straw mannish to use the article “the” in your phrasing imply /all/ unwanted microbes; preservatives mitigate enough unwanted microbes to justify use as a preservative).
stom@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Life started in the ocean, so logically this makes no sense.
plantteacher@mander.xyz 7 months ago
Actually that logic is broken. A preservative need not make life impossible for all organisms. Hops preserve beer to some extent by making life hard for some unwanted organisms. But hops do not kill everything (of course, because you intend to drink the beer). But as I said in my correction, salt works as a preservative through a drying effect, which I did not previously realize.
stom@lemmy.world 7 months ago
So you thought leaving food waste in brine was safe because it would only kill the bad bacteria?
plantteacher@mander.xyz 7 months ago
If you read the whole thread, I would not have to spell this out. These are preservatives (source):
They generally work by killing/repelling/deterring unwanted microbes. Before yesterday, I thought salt worked similarly to the others. Yesterday I learnt that salt exceptional and only functions as a preservative due to a different mechanism (drying effect).
Your logic is nonsense. To claim that because substance X does not kill /everything/, it cannot be a preservative – it’s broken logic. Nothing on that list of food preservatives kills or deters every microbe. Of course they selectively mitigate “the bad bacteria” (but note it’s a bit straw mannish to use the article “the” in your phrasing imply /all/ unwanted microbes; preservatives mitigate enough unwanted microbes to justify use as a preservative).