REPORT OF RT2

OBJECTIVES
• Describe the problems people have had in preserving
foods
• Trace some of the important developments in preserving
foods
• Explain why various methods of food preserving work
Types of Food Preserving
- Smoking
- Salting
- Drying
- Freezing
- Fermentation
Smoking
• Early humans probably discovered by accident that certain
foods exposed to smoke seem to last longer than those that
are not. Meats, fish, fowl, and cheese were among such foods.
It appears that compounds present in wood smoke have anti-
microbial actions that prevent the growth of organisms that
cause spoilage.
• Today, the process of smoking has become a sophisticated
method of food preservation with both hot and cold forms in
use. Hot smoking is used primarily with fresh or frozen foods,
while cold smoking is used most often with salted products.
The most advantageous conditions for each kind of smoking—
air velocity, relative humidity, length of exposure, and salt
content, for example–are now generally understood and
applied during the smoking process. For example, electrostatic
precipitators can be employed to attract smoke particles and
improve the penetration of the particles into meat or fish.
• The process requires constant attention and equipment that
can be costly. It is difficult to keep the food moist due to low
moisture contents in the smoker, and it is also difficult not to
contaminate meat flavor. Problems can occur if the fire is too
hot (cooking the meat before it is properly smoked) or if there is
not enough smoke or heat (the meat goes bad before it can be
smoked).

• Statistical correlations exist that indicate that smoked foods

may contain carcinogens. The smoking process contaminates
food with Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
contaminate food when the food is smoked. Some experts
believe that when smoked foods are consumed, it increases
gastrointestinal cancer risks. Not everyone, however, agrees
that the evidence is definitive.
Salting
• Salting or Curing can be accomplished in a variety of ways.
Meats can be submerged in a salt solution known as brine, for
example, or the salt can be rubbed on the meat by hand. The
injection of salt solutions into meats has also become popular.
Food scientists have now learned that a number of factors
relating to the food product and to the preservative conditions
affect the efficiency of curing. Some of the food factors include
the type of food being preserved, the fat content, and the size
of treated pieces. Preservative factors include brine
temperature and concentration and the presence of impurities.

• Curing is used with certain fruits and vegetables, such as

cabbage (in the making of sauerkraut), cucumbers (in the
making of pickles), and olives. It is probably most popular,
however, in the preservation of meats and fish. Honey-cured
hams, bacon, and corned beef ("corn" is a term for a form of
salt crystals) are common examples.
• Excessive salt intake has been linked to high blood pressure,
which is in turn a contributor to heart disease and stroke. In
addition, high sodium can make you more prone to kidney
stones, osteoporosis and even stomach cancer. The University
of Maryland Medical Center also warns of links to cirrhosis.
• With so much salty convenience food on the market, it can be
all too easy to lose track of how much sodium you're
consuming. The US Department of Agriculture recommends a
daily intake for adults of 2,300 milligrams of sodium -- equal to
1 teaspoon of table salt – going down to 1,500 mg per day for
individuals diagnosed with high blood pressure. To limit your
intake, make recipes with garlic, pepper and herbs rather than
salt, opt for fresh produce over processed food, and read food
labels to see how much salt per serving an item contains – a
healthy level being 100 mg per serving or less.
Drying
• Since most disease-causing organisms require a moist
environment in which to survive and multiply, drying is a natural
technique for preventing spoilage. Indeed, the act of simply
leaving foods out in the sun and wind to dry out is probably one
of the earliest forms of food preservation. Evidence for the
drying of meats, fish, fruits, and vegetables go back to the
earliest recorded human history.
• Vacuum drying is a form of preservation in which a food is
placed in a large container from which air is removed. Water
vapor pressure within the food is greater than that outside of it,
and water evaporates more quickly from the food than in a
normal atmosphere. Vacuum drying is biologically desirable
since some enzymes that cause oxidation of foods become
active during normal air drying.
• Overly dried fruits, vegetables and meats can be
exceptionally hard, often to the point where they do not
soften. Texture is often noticeably changed. Jerky for
instance will never be made into a regular piece of meat.
Fruit leathers will never become fruit or fruit sauce again.
The dried product would rot before it softened.

• Dehydrated foods have had all the water removed, so be

sure to increase fluid intake if consuming large quantities
of dried foods.
Freezing
• Freezing is an effective form of food preservation because the
pathogens that cause food spoilage are killed or do not grow very
rapidly at reduced temperatures. The process is less effective in food
preservation than are thermal techniques such as boiling because
pathogens are more likely to be able to survive cold temperatures
than hot temperatures. In fact, one of the problems surrounding the
use of freezing as a method of food preservation is the danger that
pathogens deactivated (but not killed) by the process will once again
become active when the frozen food thaws.

• A number of factors are involved in the selection of the best approach

to the freezing of foods, including the temperature to be used, the rate
at which freezing is to take place, and the actual method used to
freeze the food. Because of differences in cellular composition, foods
actually begin to freeze at different temperatures ranging from about
31°F (-0.6°C) for some kinds of fish to 19°F (-7°C) for some kinds of
fruits.
• The rate at which food is frozen is also a factor, primarily because of
aesthetic reasons. The more slowly food is frozen, the larger the ice
crystals that are formed. Large ice crystals have the tendency to
cause rupture of cells and the destruction of texture in meats, fish,
vegetables, and fruits. In order to deal with this problem, the
technique of quick-freezing has been developed. In quick-freezing, a
food is cooled to or below its freezing point as quickly as possible.
The product thus obtained, when thawed, tends to have a firm, more
natural texture than is the case with most slow-frozen foods.
• Another technique for freezing foods is by immersion in very cold
liquids. At one time, sodium chloride brine solutions were widely used
for this purpose. A 10% brine solution, for example, has a freezing
point of about 21°F (-6°C), well within the desired freezing range for
many foods. More recently, liquid nitrogen has been used for
immersion freezing. The temperature of liquid nitrogen is about -
320°F (-195.5°C), so that foods immersed in this substance freeze
very quickly.
Fermentation
• Fermentation is a naturally occurring chemical reaction by
which a natural food is converted into another form by
pathogens. It is a process in which food "goes bad," but results
in the formation of an edible product. Perhaps the best
example of such a food is cheese. Fresh milk does not remain
in edible condition for a very long period of time. Its pH is such
that harmful pathogens begin to grow in it very rapidly. Early
humans discovered, however, that the spoilage of milk can be
controlled in such a way as to produce a new product, cheese.

• Bread is another food product made by the process of

fermentation. Flour, water, sugar, milk, and other raw materials
are mixed together with yeasts and then baked. The addition of
yeasts brings about the fermentation of sugars present in the
mixture, resulting in the formation of a product that will remain
edible much longer than will the original raw materials used in
the bread-making process.
• A study was published in Cancer Science in January 2011
showing a connection between the consumption of
fermented foods and the risk of developing gastric cancer.
The study was a meta-analysis of reports showing the
effects of fermented and non-fermented soy food
consumption on the risk of gastric cancer development.
The study indicated that a high intake of fermented soy
foods increased the risk of gastric cancer while a diet that
was high in non-fermented soy foods reduced the risk of
gastric cancer.