Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals.
Bacteria are a common cause of foodborne illness.Symptoms for bacterial infections are delayed because the bacteria need time to multiply. They are usually not seen until 12–72 hours or more after eating contaminated food.
How bacteria grow
Bacteria need warmth and moisture to grow. They reproduce by dividing themselves, so one bacterium becomes two and then two become four and so on. In the right conditions one bacterium could become several million in 8 hours and thousands of millions in 12 hours.
This means that if a food is contaminated with a small number of bacteria and you leave it out of the fridge overnight it could be seriously contaminated by the next day. Then just one mouthful could make someone ill. If you put food in the fridge it will stop bacteria from multiplying.
Most common bacterial foodborne pathogens are:
Other common bacterial foodborne pathogens
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bacteria
The bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms