Hello, you are welcome once again... Today we will be looking at several ways in which we can home preserve our food product in order to extend its shelf life with its aesthetic properties intact and also making it free of pathogenic microorganism. This write up is targeted towards educating the reader about several ways of getting the food preserved at household level. So let get it rolling......off we go......
WHAT IS FOOD PRESERVATION?
Food preservation is a process or techniques carried out to prevent food spoilage thereby extending the shelf life of a food product without damaging its nutritional content, aesthetic qualities and not contaminated with pathogenic microorganism so as to make it useful for as long as possible
WHY DO YOU NEED TO PRESERVE YOUR FOOD?
Preserving your food is needed so as to avoid this three thing happening to your food
- Wastage
- Spoilage
- Food contamination
DO you know that more than half of world food production ended up as wasted materials due to poor storage and lack of preservation.This write will be focusing majorly on home preservation of food.
HOW DO I PRESERVE MY FOOD?
There are several food preservation method , the food involves determine the best preservative method. In choosing preservation method, one must consider the food, the type of microorganism that could be present.The food preservation method that could be done at home are explained below:
Freezing
This is the process of subjecting or storing your food in a very low temperature environment so as to render the microorganism that could cause spoilage inactive, inhibit any chemical reaction that could trigger spoilage and frozen up or solidify the moisture content which is highly important for the survival of microorganisms on the food. You can easily do this by storing your food inside your freezer. The side effect may be during thawing in which the nutrient of the food may be lost and the aesthetic properties of the food may be tampered with.
Salting/Marinating
This is a process of using salt to preserve your food product, it revolves storing your food product in a salty solution this helps to preserve the shelf life of food product. Not all food are suitable to this method but it is quite effective except it alter the natural taste of the food.
Processing a food into another food product
A food can be processed into several form which can go a long way in to extending the shelf life of the food product, such as turing of vegetable to powder, extracting juice from fruits and processing of tomatoes into tomato paste.
Blanching
This is a mild heat treatment of your food, this is done to put a stop to any spoilage induce chemical reactions and also to reduce the microbial load of the food.
Adding of Chemicals Preservatives
There are some chemical compound that acts as food preservative agent but the person to use it must be careful to know the right concentration of chemicals to use and how it should be apply to avoid a situation like food poisoning. Ascorbic acid, sodium bicarbonate are good preservative agent.
Home canning
Home canning puts the pleasure of eating natural, delicious produce at your fingertips year-round. Preserving food in mason jars might sound old-fashioned, but it is as modern and practical as the latest health food trend Home canners enjoy the rewards of numerous homemade meals and snacks, created from just one preserving session. When you preserve food at home, you create products that save you time in day-to-day food preparation, a real blessing given today's hectic lifestyles.All you need are water canner,pressure canner,Jar Lids and Screw Bands,Canning Jars and Canning Utensils.
There are many other preservation method carried out at home level, kindly frrl free to share your's
WHAT DO I GAIN WHEN I PRESERVE MY FOOD?
- saves money
- reduces wastage
- healthy eating and consuming fresh products
- reduces the risk of food contamination
- varieties is introduced into our diet.
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