Q. Effect on Microbial Ecology and Food Spoilage of pH?
The acidity of a product plays an important role in deciding the type microflora present in food and the rate and type of its spoilage. For example, most of the meats and seafoods have a final ultimate pH of about 5.6 and above. Thus, these products are susceptible to bacterial as well as to mold and yeast spoilage. Similarly, most vegetables have higher pH values than fruits, and thus vegetables would be more prone to bacterial than fungal spoilage since such pH values favour bacterial growth. Soft-rot producing bacteria such as Erwinia carotovora and pseudomonads play a significant role in their spoilage.
In fruits, however, a lower pH (below 4.5) prevents bacterial growth and yeasts and molds dominate spoilage. Fish is spoiled more rapidly than meat under chilled conditions. This is due to the fact that the pH of post-rigor mammalian muscle is around 5.6 and this contributes to the longer storage life of meat. On the other hand, fish have a pH between 6.2-6.5. Shewanella (formerly Alteromonas) mainly causes spoilage under chilled conditions. It is a pH-sensitive microbe and hence, plays a significant role in fish spoilage but not in normal meat (pH<6.0). Those fishes that have a naturally low pH such as halibut (pH~5.6) as a result have better keeping qualities than other fish. Thus, a food with inherently low pH would tend to be more stable microbiologically than a neutral food.