Food Preservation by Spencer

What is food preservation? Food preservation is the process that food undergoes so that it can be preserved. There are multiple ways one can preserve food. Here’s a list of different food preservation techniques.

·         Drying

·         Freezing

·         Smoking

·         Broiling

·         Burial

·         Canning

·         Fermentation

·         Salting

·         Pickling

·         Jellying

Drying: Drying in the process in which bacteria dry up and die. This allows food to last longer than it normally would. When you dry food, you heat up the food until all of the liquid comes out.

Freezing: Freezing it an easy and really quick way to preserve some foods. Some foods have different freezing temperatures, but when you do freeze food you are freezing the tissue of the vegetables or fruits. You can also freeze fruits and vegetables.

Smoking: Just like other preservation tactics, smoking is used to extend the shelf life of food. When you smoke food, you expose the food to smoke by burning plant materials. This decomposes parts of the food to help dry and preserve it. It also gets rid of moisture, so the food cannot grow mold.

Brining: When you brine a food, you are soaking it in salt water. Bringing is a step in pickling, but it is different. In some ways it is actually similar to drying. It draws water out of the fruit or vegetable, which helps preserve food.

Burial: Burial is a common technique used for preserving foods. There are many different factors that can affect the food. Things such as lack of light, lack of oxygen, cool temperatures or pH levels. Sometimes meat is buried on hot coals or ashes, this causes to pathogens to die/be killed

Canning: Canning is where people put certain foods in a jar. The jars are sealed, and put in extremely high temperatures for a long period of time. The heat kills all the microorganisms that could potentially cause the food to mold or the spoil.

Fermentation: Fermentation is the chemical breakdown of a substance, by bacteria, yeasts or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat.

Salting: Salt draws water out of food an dehydrates it. All living things require water to live, so without water they cannot grow. Salt is used to make beef jerky, it is also used to preserve butter. Vegetables such as runner beans and cabbage are also often preserved with salt.

Pickling: Pickling is the process of preserving food by anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. The pH of vinegar is 4.6 or lower. That’s enough to kill most bacteria in foods, preserving them for months.

Jellying: Jellying is adding sugar to pectin (which is a carbohydrate usually found in fruits). When sugar is added to pectin, it creates fibers which trap the fruit juice. This causes the fruit to gel.