Preserving Food By: Leonora

Basic Reasons of preserving food There are two basic reasons why we preserve food for our health. The first reason is to slow down the bacteria that cause disease. The second reason is to kill all the bacteria.

Slowing down Bacteria Are you wondering why we slow down the time it takes for disease causing bacteria to multiply? Well you probably already know, because the pathogens (bad bacteria) that cause diseases are bad for you, and it takes a longer time for it to multiply and fully rot and expire.

Killing the bacteria As we know, all pathogens or bad bacteria’s are bad for our health and can cause infection, illness, or death. As we don’t want that to happen we can kill bacteria and germs by pasteurizing, mainly diary products. For canned food, we irradiate it. Which means take oxygen, using some kind of vacuum, in which is called electromagnetic radiation. It preserves food and kills bacteria.

Refrigerating and Freezing Refrigeration and freezing are the main type of preserving food. We use freezing and refrigerating to make bacteria freeze and and for food to last long for about a week or more. Frozen bacteria don’t move or spread so they’re not active and can’t do anything, which makes food stay good for longer.

Freeze Drying Freeze-drying is like a food drying that removes all moisture. It is said to have have less of an impact on the freeze dried food's taste than normal dehydration. When freeze-drying, they freeze the food and placed in a strong vacuum. The water in the food then turns quickly from ice into vapor. Freeze-drying is usually used to make instant coffee, but works very well on fruits.

Salting Salting is usually used for meat. Salting is an old technique that people in the past used to preserve food. The salt removes the moisture from the food, as bacteria does not grow in salted areas, as it kills it.

Pasteurization Pasteurization is when we boil food to kill all the bacteria and germs. Sometimes it can even kill the good bacteria and changes the taste of the original food. It is mostly for diary products. The higher temperature you boil the food in, the longer the food lasts. There are special pasteurizers milk and eggs etc.

Chemical Preserving There are many ways of preserving food but they’re are three types of chemical preservatives used in food.