How does smoking preserve foods against bacterial growth?

[oem7110]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how smoke kills bacteria?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions

 

[oem7110]

Any suggestions?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

How do you know it does? What kind (composition) of smoke? Is this in reference to smoking meats?

 

[MrSid]

As hinted by Greg Bernhardt, preserving foods against bacterial growth by smoking is not the same as saying the smoke kills the bacteria. Preservation of foods by smoking, drying, salting, etc involves removing moisture and lowering the water activity in the parlance of food preservation- this concentrates solutes such as sugars and salts to an osmotic value that inhibits bacterial growth. In combination with some pH changes towards an acidic range, additional microbes are inhibited from growing as well.