Food spoilage in the context of "Microorganism"

White rice is milled rice that has had the husk, bran, and germ removed. This alters the flavor, texture, and appearance of the seed; helps prevent spoilage (extends its storage life); and makes it easier to digest. After brown rice is milled (hulled), it is polished, resulting in rice with a bright, white, shiny appearance. The milling and polishing processes both remove nutrients.

An unbalanced diet based on unenriched white rice leaves many people vulnerable to the neurological disease beriberi, due to a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B₁). White rice is often enriched with some of the nutrients stripped from it during its processing. Enrichment of white rice with B₁, B₃, and iron is required by law in the United States when distributed by government programs to schools, nonprofits, or foreign countries. As with all natural foods, the precise nutritional composition of rice varies slightly depending on the variety, soil conditions, environmental conditions, and types of fertilizers.

Curing is any of various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of salt, with the aim of drawing moisture out of the food by the process of osmosis. Because curing increases the solute concentration in the food and hence decreases its water potential, the food becomes inhospitable for the microbe growth that causes food spoilage. Curing can be traced back to antiquity, and was the primary method of preserving meat and fish until the late 19th century. Dehydration was the earliest form of food curing. Many curing processes also involve smoking, spicing, cooking, or the addition of combinations of sugar, nitrate, and nitrite.

Meat preservation in general (of meat from livestock, game, and poultry) comprises the set of all treatment processes for preserving the properties, taste, texture, and color of raw, partially cooked, or cooked meats while keeping them edible and safe to consume. Curing has been the dominant method of meat preservation for thousands of years, although modern developments like refrigeration and synthetic preservatives have begun to complement and supplant it.

Antioxidants are compounds that inhibit oxidation, a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals. Autoxidation leads to degradation of organic compounds, including living matter. Antioxidants are frequently added to industrial products, such as polymers, fuels, and lubricants, to extend their usable lifetimes. Foods are also treated with antioxidants to prevent spoilage, in particular the rancidification of oils and fats. In cells, antioxidants such as glutathione, mycothiol, or bacillithiol, and enzyme systems like superoxide dismutase, inhibit damage from oxidative stress.

Dietary antioxidants are vitamins A, C, and E, but the term has also been applied to various compounds that exhibit antioxidant properties in vitro, having little evidence for antioxidant properties in vivo. Dietary supplements marketed as antioxidants have not been shown to maintain health or prevent disease in humans.