Importance Of Food Preservation

Introduction:

The topic of choice is The preservation of foods and the different methods in which to do so. In this assignment I will be discussing and describing the topic of the process of preserving food products for which there are various methods for i.e curing, smoking, etc. Apart from this introduction I will be braking this project down into a number of different sections. These will go through and explain the aims and objectives of this project and the reason behind preserving meats, my main findings on the topic of meat presevation including the details about each method and the advantages, disadvantages and the results of each type, a conclusion and a bibliography and later a presentation summerising all of the headings of this project.

Aims and Objectives of Food Preservation:

Food preservation usually involves preventing the growth of bacteria and or any other micro-organisms as well as stopping the oxidation of the fats in foods that can cause the products to go rancid. Food preservation can also prevent or cause certain processes that effect the visual apperance of products for example enzymatic browning that occurs in apples when they are not properly kept and protected after they are cut which would usually happen during the process of food preparation.

There are many processes designed to preserve food which would involve a number of different methods or ways of preserving them but may vary in results. Keeping to my topic preserving meat such as pork for example, This can be done a number of ways e.g salting, dry curing, vaccum packing, freezing, smoking all would be used to reduce the meat's moisture content and to kill bacteria and other micro organisims and even sugaring to prevent their re-growth but help de...

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...of meat similar in the way of drying.

Freezing: Freezing is also one of the most commonly used processes for preserving food including prepared food stuffs that would not require freezing as they would originally be in an unprepared state. Freezing is an effective method for preserving food because the micro organisims that cause food to spoil are killed or else their rate of growth is reduced severely over the low temperatures. However the process is less effective than other methods such as boiling, because pathogens are more likely to survive cold temperatures rather than hot temperatures. As a result of this causes the problem of bacteria not being completely killed off by the process and will become active again when the frozen food thaws. Foods can be preserved for months by the freezing method. Long-term storage needs a constant temperature of -18 °C or less.