The Then And Now Of Food Preservation

It is a fact that except the foods grown in your garden, all the stuff we eat already has preservatives. Every manufacturer adds preservative to the food during processing to avoid spoilage during the transportation time and every housewife adds preservatives to their leftovers to save it for the next meal. It has almost become a necessity to preserve foods due to its importance in man's daily stride. Traditionally, people preserve food by means of boiling, freezing & refrigeration, pasteurizing, dehydrating, pickling, adding sugar and salt and even burying it underground are some of the ways how man used to and still preserve his food. Food preservation as a technology has become dynamic and modern with innovative ways of prolonging shelf-life. With the new demands of massive preservation needed by large companies of food or even small stores, man has come up with new ways on how to preserve food. Food preservatives can now be in form of chemical preservatives, by nuclear radiation or irradiation, modified packaging techniques like vacuum packing and hypobaric packing, and pulsed electric field processing (PEF treatment) to name a few. These conventional ways of food preservation makes it easier for the large and small players alike to preserve the quality of food they present and sell to their clients and buyers alike. Chemical preservatives are being used for quite some time now as they seem to be the best and the most effective for a longer shelf life and are generally fool proof for the preservation purpose. On the other hand, irradiation works by delivery of ionizing radiation to disrupt cellular RNA that can be seen in yeasts and other microbial agents that upsets the freshness of the food. It currently extends the shelf lives of foods such as strawberries. Don't be fooled, irradiation does not make foods radioactive, but may cause changes in food color or texture. Vacuum packing stores food in a vacuum environment, usually in an air-tight bag or bottle. The vacuum environment strips bacteria of oxygen needed for survival, slowing spoiling. Pulsed electric field processing or PEF treatment is a method for processing cells by means of brief pulses of a strong electric field. PEF is somewhat a modernized way of pasteurization. Still have doubts? These food preservatives act as either antimicrobials or antioxidants or both. They stop or slow down the growth of bacteria, insects and other harmful microorganisms that spoil our food causing it to be inedible. Antimicrobials prevent the growth of molds, yeasts and bacteria and antioxidants keep foods from being rancid or developing black spots. Food preservatives are a good companion in our kitchen and elsewhere.Our food preservatives have three main goals: preservation of nutritional characteristics, preservation of appearance, and a prolongation of time that the food may be stored. Whether traditional or modernized method, they aim to exclude factors that affect the edibility of our food. Ancient and modern people alike have found ways to prolong the consumability of food to decrease the instances of throwing away leftovers that may be prepared again. Nevertheless, consumers worldwide must know the proper way of food preservation to prevent wasting time in preparing the foods for storage. Regulation of using these food preservatives is a must in order to control its adverse effects that may harm our body.
Related Articles:

• Understanding Food Preservation
• Ways To Preserve Your Food
• What Is Food Preservation?
• Which Food Preservation Method Should You Choose
• Basic Food Preservation - Canning Fruits
• Basic Food Preservation - Canning Meat
• Canning Fruits And Vegetables
• Canning Meats