Monera lab

Spoilage of food by temperature: Any non sterile food is likely to spoil in time if it is moist enough and unfrozen. There is likelihood of spoilage at any temperature between -5 and 70 C. Since microorganisms differ so widely in their optimal, minimal, and maximal temperatures for growth, it is obvious that the temperature at which a food is held will have a great influence on the kind, rate, and amount of microbial induced change that will take place. Even a small change in temperature may favor an entirely different kind of organism and result in a different type of spoilage.

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Surface vegetables microorganisms:
The numbers of bacteria will depend on the plant and its environment and may range from few hundred or thousand per square centimeter of surface to millions.
For example; The surface of well washed tomato may show 400 to 700 microorganisms per square centimeter, while an unwashed tomato would have several thousand. Outer tissue of unwashed cabbage might contain 1 million to 2 million microorganisms per gram, but washed and trimmed cabbage might contain 2,00,000 to 5,00,000