Does Yeast Affect Cellular Respiration Process?

Yeast is used everyday for many purposes. Unless you don’t eat bread or drink alcohol, you have plenty of yeast in day to day life. It brings important characteristics to lots of foods, such as the bubbling in alcoholic beverages and the rising of bread. Yeast can also be related to infections. The question is, what happens to yeast when exposed to varying different levels of salt, and how does this affect its cellular respiration process?

Yeast works through the process of fermentation. Yeast uses fermentation to obtain energy by converting sugars into alcohol. There are lots of types of yeast though, with over 1,500 species that have been recorded to date. Most commonly used in food production is a species of yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It prefers a warm and moist environment for growing along with a slightly acidic pH.

It can have either a positive, negative, or no effect. It depends on the species of yeast. With yeast used to bake, a good medium amount of salt must be found. While it does add seasoning, too much salt can cause a yeast cell to release water, slowing down the fermentation and production activity rates. This is something bakers often keep in mind when adding salt to their dough; they measure it based on how active they want the yeast to be. It affects other processes in different ways as well, this is just simply one specific example.

Salt is known for drawing water out of cells through osmosis. This gives it wide varying effects when introduced to certain subjects in certain conditions. For example, when salt is introduced to plants, it can kill them or affect their growth and wellbeing. Salinity draws water from the plants, leaving them dehydrated. They are then at the mercy of their environment to give them more water. Coping with salinity also depends on the type of plant. For example, crops tend to do badly with high levels of