Food preservation

Preserved food

Food preservation includes processes that make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats. This slows down the decomposition and rancidification process. Food preservation may also include processes that inhibit visual deterioration, such as the enzymatic browning reaction in apples after they are cut during food preparation. By preserving food, food waste can be reduced, which is an important way to decrease production costs and increase the efficiency of food systems and improve food security and nutrition. Many processes designed to preserve food involve more than one food preservation method. Preserving fruit by turning it into jam, for example, involves boiling (to reduce the fruit's moisture content and to kill bacteria), sugaring (to prevent their re-growth) and sealing within an airtight jar (to prevent recontamination).

Meats can be preserved by dehydrating it over a heat source, preferably a fire due to the sterilization effects of smoke. The meat should at a low temperature (140°F to 180°F) to properly make jerky. this process should be done until the meat is dry and chewy. The jerky can be stored for around 1 year at room temperature and 2 when frozen.

Dependencies

• Food
  • Food preservation
    • Preserving food in the ground
    • Canning
    • Heat
    • Refrigeration
    • Sugar
    • Salt
    • Drying
    • Pickling
    • Water
    • Fermentation
    • Pemmican
    • Solid soup

See also

• Bacteria
• Cooking
• Fungi
• Pot-in-pot refrigerator
• Water filter

References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Food, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Human_food, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).