3 ms·

> Mainly demonstrating you can literally sell rotten milk so long as you label it "traditional". Cheese is the coagulated protein of fermented milk, not rotten

> Mainly demonstrating you can literally sell rotten milk so long as you label it "traditional". Cheese is the coagulated protein of fermented milk, not rotten milk. If it was rotten nobody would be able to eat it without dying often. Cheese is traditional, it's one of the main ways that diverse cultures around the world have harnessed the activity of bacteria to transform food and preserve it or alter its organoleptic qualities to make it more pleasant to eat. Works great without the need for experimental tech of dubious long-term safety, too.

ben_w 2y ago
> Cheese is the coagulated protein of fermented milk, not rotten milk. If it was rotten nobody would be able to eat it without dying often. The difference is fundamentally if the result is one you like. I ferment, you grew a culture, they let their food rot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation > Works great without the need for experimental tech of dubious long-term safety, too. Several thousands of years ago, probably by some combination of accident and disaster (or possibly just a dare) that resulted in some humans sucking on a wild aurochs' teat, followed by an unknown duration (estimated to be a few thousand years) of this drink not being consumable by adults (adult lactose tolerance is a relatively recent mutation in humans) before someone in a relatively cool climate forgot to add salt to the cow stomach they were storing it in, the salt having been necessary for preservation in a hot climate but also prevented the necessary bacteria for cheese from growing. Not that any of them at the time knew any of that, because they had no means to see bacteria, let alone perform tests for lactose in the milk and lactase in the drinkers. The cows now milk themselves thanks to tech having replaced the need for the milkmaids whose experience catching cowpox inspired the first smallpox vaccine ("vacca" being the latin for cow). Basically everything invented before the industrial revolution was people guessing wildly, and if their guesses didn't kill them then people copied it. That is the tradition that led to this: a tradition of FAFO and YOLO.
- antidiot 2y ago
  The difference is in the chemical process not in the words we say. When you leave some veg in the fridge for too long and it turns black and mushy and eventually liquefies, that's rot. When milk is fermented to make cheese the fermentation is short (around half an hour) and the result is a lowering of the milk pH to at most around 4.0 to 4.5 (from 5.5 to 6.5 of fresh milk depending on species). It's really not a big change and you can't tell just by sight or smell as with rotten food. Sometimes you can't even taste the change in pH because it's so small. The purpose of the fermentation is to create ideal acidity conditions for the rennet enzymes to work. When rennet is added it causes some of the proteins in milk to coagulate. That's when milk becomes cheese. That's when fluid milk turns into a solid and it's exactly the opposite of what happens to food when it rots. Hard cheese will not rot even if you leave it for years. It just turns rock-hard and it's still edible through grating. I don't know how cheese was first crated. We can speculate but we'll never know. I guess everything we eat today took some FAFO and YOLO to try out for the first time. I bet lots of people died before they figured out what mushrooms are safe to eat or at least sat for days on the (paleolithic) loo cursing under their breath.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    2, 4, and 5 from this list of uses of "fermentation" also describe the microbial action involved in decomposition: """Below are some definitions of fermentation ranging from informal, general usages to more scientific definitions.[3] 1. Preservation methods for food via microorganisms (general use). 2. Any large-scale microbial process occurring with or without air (common definition used in industry, also known as industrial fermentation). 3. Any process that produces alcoholic beverages or acidic dairy products (general use). 4. Any energy-releasing metabolic process that takes place only under anaerobic conditions (somewhat scientific). 5. Any metabolic process that releases energy from a sugar or other organic molecule, does not require oxygen or an electron transport system, and uses an organic molecule as the final electron acceptor (most scientific).""" [3] Microbiology An Introduction (10 ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-321-58202-7 — apparently, but I can't confirm because the thing was removed form archive.org Also, compare this: > and the result is a lowering of the milk pH with this: """Once the heart stops, the blood can no longer supply oxygen or remove carbon dioxide from the tissues. The resulting decrease in pH and other chemical changes cause cells to lose their structural integrity, bringing about the release of cellular enzymes capable of initiating the breakdown of surrounding cells and tissues.""" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition So yeah, I'm sticking with my claim: in conventional usage, the same chemo-biological mechanisms get different names depending on if you like the result or not.

ben_w 2y ago

> Cheese is the coagulated protein of fermented milk, not rotten milk. If it was rotten nobody would be able to eat it without dying often. The difference is fundamentally if the result is one you like. I ferment, you grew a culture, they let their food rot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation > Works great without the need for experimental tech of dubious long-term safety, too. Several thousands of years ago, probably by some combination of accident and disaster (or possibly just a dare) that resulted in some humans sucking on a wild aurochs' teat, followed by an unknown duration (estimated to be a few thousand years) of this drink not being consumable by adults (adult lactose tolerance is a relatively recent mutation in humans) before someone in a relatively cool climate forgot to add salt to the cow stomach they were storing it in, the salt having been necessary for preservation in a hot climate but also prevented the necessary bacteria for cheese from growing. Not that any of them at the time knew any of that, because they had no means to see bacteria, let alone perform tests for lactose in the milk and lactase in the drinkers. The cows now milk themselves thanks to tech having replaced the need for the milkmaids whose experience catching cowpox inspired the first smallpox vaccine ("vacca" being the latin for cow). Basically everything invented before the industrial revolution was people guessing wildly, and if their guesses didn't kill them then people copied it. That is the tradition that led to this: a tradition of FAFO and YOLO.

antidiot 2y ago
The difference is in the chemical process not in the words we say. When you leave some veg in the fridge for too long and it turns black and mushy and eventually liquefies, that's rot. When milk is fermented to make cheese the fermentation is short (around half an hour) and the result is a lowering of the milk pH to at most around 4.0 to 4.5 (from 5.5 to 6.5 of fresh milk depending on species). It's really not a big change and you can't tell just by sight or smell as with rotten food. Sometimes you can't even taste the change in pH because it's so small. The purpose of the fermentation is to create ideal acidity conditions for the rennet enzymes to work. When rennet is added it causes some of the proteins in milk to coagulate. That's when milk becomes cheese. That's when fluid milk turns into a solid and it's exactly the opposite of what happens to food when it rots. Hard cheese will not rot even if you leave it for years. It just turns rock-hard and it's still edible through grating. I don't know how cheese was first crated. We can speculate but we'll never know. I guess everything we eat today took some FAFO and YOLO to try out for the first time. I bet lots of people died before they figured out what mushrooms are safe to eat or at least sat for days on the (paleolithic) loo cursing under their breath.
- ben_w 2y ago
  2, 4, and 5 from this list of uses of "fermentation" also describe the microbial action involved in decomposition: """Below are some definitions of fermentation ranging from informal, general usages to more scientific definitions.[3] 1. Preservation methods for food via microorganisms (general use). 2. Any large-scale microbial process occurring with or without air (common definition used in industry, also known as industrial fermentation). 3. Any process that produces alcoholic beverages or acidic dairy products (general use). 4. Any energy-releasing metabolic process that takes place only under anaerobic conditions (somewhat scientific). 5. Any metabolic process that releases energy from a sugar or other organic molecule, does not require oxygen or an electron transport system, and uses an organic molecule as the final electron acceptor (most scientific).""" [3] Microbiology An Introduction (10 ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-321-58202-7 — apparently, but I can't confirm because the thing was removed form archive.org Also, compare this: > and the result is a lowering of the milk pH with this: """Once the heart stops, the blood can no longer supply oxygen or remove carbon dioxide from the tissues. The resulting decrease in pH and other chemical changes cause cells to lose their structural integrity, bringing about the release of cellular enzymes capable of initiating the breakdown of surrounding cells and tissues.""" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition So yeah, I'm sticking with my claim: in conventional usage, the same chemo-biological mechanisms get different names depending on if you like the result or not.