Today there are endless food preservation methods. As humanity advances, it has quantified its efforts to achieve the durability of what it consumes.
Since time immemorial, food preservation has been a priority for man. There has always been a struggle to extend the life of those foods that were consumed in abundance, such as meats and already ground flours, thus reaching methods based on salt and fermentation..
With technological advances, those archaic ways of extending the shelf life of food have become a thing of the past. With refrigeration processes, our food can even exceed the expiration date without putting our lives at risk..
However, cooling methods are not the only ones used today. Chemical components, from cultivation to mass production and distribution, play a fundamental role even after the food is placed on the shelves of supermarkets or tarantines..
New techniques are developed every day in order to preserve our health and our quality of life.
In ancient times, food production was scarce; and this resulted in the low production being precarious due to their limited access. This was added to the factor of the annual seasons, since one time or another brings efficiencies or deficiencies in production..
They are based on freezing food, slowing the growth of bacteria, subjecting them to low temperatures.
Freezing food is the art of preparing, packaging and freezing food at its peak of freshness. Most fresh vegetables and fruits, meat and fish, breads and cakes, clear soups and casseroles can be frozen.
In refrigeration it does not imply placing the food below 0 degrees Celsius, but these are subjected to a delay in those catalysts in their composition that prevent bacteria from being born or reproducing.
Unlike refrigeration, food is subjected to temperatures below zero, which causes all the liquid present in them to solidify, forming ice.
This method allows meats, poultry and fish to be preserved for a very long time, even though their quality gradually deteriorates after the expiration date..
Taken to extremes, deep freezing is the method by which food is processed by immersion in liquids at a very low temperature. It is not a domestic method.
Heat treatment is one of the most important long-term preservation techniques. Its objective is to destroy and totally or partially inhibit the enzymes and microorganisms that could alter the food or make it unfit for human consumption..
Generally speaking, the higher the temperature and the longer the term, the greater the effect..
However, we must also take into account the thermal resistance of microorganisms and enzymes, whose strength may vary depending on the time of year and where they are..
Sterilization involves exposing food to a temperature generally above 100ºC for a period sufficient to inhibit enzymes and all forms of microorganisms, including spores or bacteriological debris..
Sterilization is not sufficient in itself, since a subsequent contamination by the environment of microorganisms can occur, so it is necessary to resort to the subsequent sterilization of containers and packages..
Pasteurization is a sufficient heat treatment to moderate and destroy microorganisms together with their pathogens, including countless spoilage microorganisms and fungi..
The treatment temperature is generally below 100 ° C, with a duration of a few seconds to several minutes, depending on the case..
It is a heat treatment of a few minutes that ranges between 70 ° C and 100 ° C to destroy the enzymes that affect vegetables or fruits before their subsequent processing (freezing, drying, etc.).
This treatment kills part of the microorganisms, fixes the natural color and eliminates the air inside the product by expansion, which otherwise could end up in decomposition..
The use of chemicals for the preservation of food products began when man learned to protect each harvest until the next, and to preserve meat and fish by salting or smoking them.
The Egyptians, for example, used dyes and aromas to increase the attractiveness of certain food products and the Romans have used saltpeter (or nitrate for its proper preservation.
Salar, as it is commonly called, is a technique that lives on and is still carried out using the same methods and processes. Salt is capable of preserving most food products for months and even years.
At the same time, this preservation method gives flavor to foods whose refinement derives from their high degree of salinity..
This process is carried out in order to reduce and eliminate almost entirely the PH of the food in question to avoid the birth of germs that would cause serious diseases to the human body. A fairly commonplace example is soaking lettuce in vinegar. This process avoids the contagion of amebiasis through this vegetable.
Most of the food preservation methods used today employ some type of chemical additive to reduce spoilage..
All are designed to kill or retard the growth of pathogens, or to prevent and retard chemical reactions that lead to oxidation of food..
A special class of additives that reduce oxidation are known as sequestrants. Sequestrants are compounds that capture metal ions, such as copper, iron, and nickel; and remove them from contact with food.
The elimination of these ions helps preserve food because in its free state they increase the speed of food oxidation.
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