9 FOOD PRESERVATION METHODS - NUTRITION - 2025

Today there are endless methods of food preservation. 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 issue 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 prolonging the shelf life of food have been left in the past. With refrigeration processes, our food can even exceed its 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 brought as a consequence that the little production was 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.

Cold preservation

They are based on the freezing of 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.

1- Refrigeration

Refrigeration 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.

2- Freezing

Unlike refrigeration, food is subjected to sub-zero temperatures, which causes all the liquid present in it to solidify, forming ice.

This method allows meat, poultry and fish to be preserved for a very long time, even though their quality gradually declines after the expiration date.

3- Ultra-freezing

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 preservation

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.

4- Sterilization

Sterilization involves exposing food to a temperature generally greater than 100 ° C 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, which is why it is necessary to resort to the subsequent sterilization of containers and packages.

5- Pasteurization

Pasteurization is a sufficient heat treatment to moderate and destroy microorganisms along 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.

6- Scalding

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 further 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.

Chemical methods

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 proper preservation.

7- Salt

Salar, as it is commonly called, is a technique that lives 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 its high degree of salinity.

8- Acidification

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 prevents the contagion of amebiasis through this vegetable.

9- Additives

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 the 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.

References

1. Chemical food preservation - rescued from azaquar.com.
2. How to Preserve Food? (6 Techniques) rescued from biologydiscussion.com.
3. Food preservation by heat treatment - rescued from azaquar.com.
4. Food Preservation: Canning, Freezing And Drying - rescued from finedininglovers.com.
5. Food Preservation Methods: Canning, Freezing, and Drying - rescued from dummies.com.
6. freezing - food preservation - rescued from Britannica.com.
7. Salting, How to Preserve Food With Salt rescued from finedininglovers.com.