Preservation (food)

“ Methods of food preservation may be broadly divided into two classes—first, those which accomplish their purpose by changing the physical condition of the food, as by drying, or cooking and hermetical sealing ”

“ Historically, food preservation and processing assured a food supply and prevented starvation. This is probably the major reason why food is processed today in many developing countries. In the United States, however, affluence and a plentiful food supply now influence the reasons for food preservation. Today, Americans live many miles from rural areas where food is produced. Consequently, food must be preserved to assure the nonfarm population an adequate supply. ”

“ It was in that warm period that the man lived and died whose fibula occurs among the bones in the cave.
Methods of preserving Fresh Meat.—So numerous are the processes devised in modern times for the preservation of food, that a simple catalogue of them would occupy several pages of this magazine. In so far as the preservation of vegetables and of certain fruits is concerned a very fair measure of success has undoubtedly been achieved; but with flesh-meat the case is different. ”

“ The conservation of our animal food resources presents a different problem from any other. It is true that we have wasted and exhausted our natural food supplies, but we must remember that to a certain extent their preservation was neither possible nor desirable. They have been driven out by advancing civilization.
Wild birds and animals leave as the forests are cut out, destroying their natural homes. Many of them can not be kept in captivity, so this supply never could have been regulated. ”

“ When the multiple interdependency food-container-cooking-preservation was internalized in the activity of preparing food, a framework for new experiences was established. Some of these experiences, such as how to handle fire, transcend nourishment. The significance of this process can be succinctly expressed: cooked food, which we need to associate to the tools used, is food taken out of the context of nature and introduced in the context of culture. The experience of cooking involves other experiences and then expands into other domains unrelated to nourishment. ”

“ Publications give safe procedures for preserving fruits, vegetables, meats, and poultry. Many thousands of these publications have been distributed to consumers, and the procedures have been widely used by others who make recommendations to the public about food preservation. ”

“ The practice of preserving roots, vegetables, and plants by covering them with earth or by placing them in cellars, etc., is an ancient one, but the practical application of the principle on a large scale to the preservation of fodder-corn, clover, etc., as a food for stock is comparatively a recent practice, the first silo in this country having been built within the last twelve years. ”

“ Our people want a food supply that is safe, high in quality and appearance, adequate nutritionally, and reasonably priced. Many consumers try to obtain these food attributes by returning to the “old ways” of growing and preserving food themselves.
To understand food preservation, let’s look at five causes of food spoilage or deterioration (four are biological, the fifth physical or mechanical) :
(1) The primary cause of food spoilage in the United States is microbiological. Micro-organisms are small living organisms such as yeast, molds, or bacteria. ”

“ Upon these simple truths rests the economic utility of cold storage preservation. Practically its benefits in the conservation of food, and in the encouragement of maximum production, are to be gained only through the opportunity for profit, and while the business of carrying foods from seasons of abundance to natural scarcity is open to all it is naturally conducted chiefly by the tradesmen who are permanently engaged in food distribution, and who are most familiar with trade conditions and the varying relations of supply and demand. ”

“ What motivates people to return to home food production and preservation? Are their expectations realistic? How extensive is their gardening? Will they continue a second year? Do they preserve any of their crop? ”

“ All the methods of preservation are put in practice occasionally for fruits and the various parts of vegetables, according to the nature of the species, the climate, the uses to which they are applied, etc. Some are dried, as nuts, raisins, sweet herbs, etc.; others are preserved by means of sugar, as, for example, many fruits whose delicate juices would be lost by drying; some are preserved by means of vinegar, and chiefly used as condiments or pickles; a few also by salting, as French beans; while others are preserved in spirits. ”

“ There are three distinct reasons why foods should be preserved in the home. The first is to bring about economy. If fruits, vegetables, and other foods can be procured at a price that will make it possible to preserve them in the home at a lower cost than that of the same foods prepared commercially, it will pay from an economical standpoint. The second is to promote conservation; that is, to prevent the wasting of food. ”

“ They were living in a warmer climate, in which a diet of beef and fermented liquor was destructive; they were forced, therefore, to a generally vegetarian dietary, and the prolific soil, almost unasked, gave them all the food they needed. ”

“ There is, perhaps, no greater blessing which has been conferred upon mankind during the last quarter of a century than the development of cold storage methods of preserving food. The continued prosperity and benefits of this business depend upon a thorough study of the conditions attendant thereon and the elimination of any evil which may be incident thereto. ”

“ Medicine will find in this method the means of relieving humanity, by the facility of meeting every where, and in all seasons, animal substances, and all kinds of vegetables, as well as their juices, preserved with all their natural qualities and virtues: by the same means it will obtain resources infinitely precious in the production of distant regions, preserved in their fresh state. ”

“ If it were not perishable it would be the practice of every individual to conserve a sufficient amount of food as might be required. No better means of preventing waste of food is known at the present time than by the use of cold storage, and the use accomplishes most desirable results, advantageous to both consumer and producer, by the conservation of food, which is just as desirable as the conservation of our natural resources. ”

“ With the increase of prosperity, it has been observed, there is a corresponding increase in the use of animal food. In Spain, France, Italy, and the warmer portions of Europe, the cooling acids of the fruits and the less-heating elements of the vegetable kingdom are better suited to the climatic needs of the people. ”

“ For the plentiful supply of vegetable food we must depend upon the fertility of the soil, as we have seen. Our animal food can not be classed among our natural resources, but as a product of them, and requires the same care and wise use. ”

“ When fruits and vegetables are plentiful, the supply is often greater than the demand for immediate consumption. Then, unless the surplus food is preserved in some way for later use, there will be a serious loss of food material. The third is to produce quality. If the home-canned product can be made superior to that commercially preserved, then, even at an equal or a slightly higher cost, it will pay to preserve food in the home.
5. Of the methods of preserving perishable foods, only two, namely, canning and drying, are considered in this Section. ”

“ The canning in cities, by individual families, of fruits, often in an over-ripe condition, is as anomalous as would be to-day the making of dairy products in city homes. The preservation of fruit is but one example of articles that could be prepared better and more cheaply in the country than in the city. Miscellaneous articles of every description, as plum-pudding, boned turkey, chicken broth, jelly, croquettes and salad, minced meat, pressed veal, bouillon, calf’s-foot jelly, pure fruit juices, blackberry cordial, and a score of other articles, could be added to the list. ”

“ Vegetables and fruits are preserved in two ways. We can have them preserved both in bottles and tins, but the principle is exactly the same in both cases, the method of preservation being simply that of excluding the air. We will not enter into the subject of how to preserve fruit and vegetables, but will confine ourselves to discussing as briefly as possible the best method of using them when they are preserved.
Unfortunately there exists a very unreasonable prejudice on the part of many persons against all kinds of provisions that are preserved in tins. ”

“ In many countries the soil is barely scratched. Even in England it is not made to yield, on the average, more than one-half its capacity." [41] And in the same work he points out that "the amount of human life sustainable on a given area, and therefore throughout the chief portion of the habitable globe, may be almost indefinitely increased by a substitution pro tanto of vegetable for animal food.... ”

“ Taking one year with another, the amount of vegetable productions is just sufficient for the sustenance of the animals. Supply and demand are in as rigid proportions here as elsewhere. Nature is no doubt as admirably endowed with the regulating principles for the conservation of quantities, as we know she is with those for the conservation of areas. If from the combustion of coal, and the consumption of food, there be a greater quantity of gases evolved and discharged into the air, there is on the other hand an increased vegetable production sufficient to absorb and condense it. ”

“ Section through a Nansen Sledging Cooker mounted on the primus
The subject of food is one which requires peculiar consideration and study. It is assumed that a polar expedition must carry all its food-stuffs in that variety and quantity which may approximately satisfy normal demands. Fortunately, the advance of science has been such that necessaries like vegetables, fruit, meats and milk are now preserved so that the chances of bacterial contamination are reduced to a minimum. ”

“ Upon the whole, the importance of this class of vegetables, as physic or as food, is not such as to furnish a very telling popular argument for the conservation of the forest as a necessary means of their perpetuation. ”

“ It is to be remembered that the advance of civilization, and the facilities of transportation and cold storage, have brought from far and near an innumerable number and variety of articles for food and drink, including condiments, which bear no relation to the few simple articles formerly consumed; even the fruits which we eat are rarely ripened fully by nature, but are picked more or less green, and undergo an artificial ripening without the action of the sun, which is really akin to decay. ”

“ Food kept for consumption in the winter time in cold climates, or in arid districts far away from its production, would in part require cooking, but that made of grains could be prepared at laboratories in a dry, unchangeable, sterile form, while some of the animal and fatty foods could be partly predigested and preserved for invalids. ”

“ Food was preserved by simple processes long before the reason for the decay and spoiling of food was fully understood, but with larger knowledge and better appliances, we now preserve food more effectively and in quantities larger than were possible in former days. ”

“ One of the leading questions that directly affects the American cuisine is the contest now progressing as to the transportation of animal food to the great Eastern markets. Heretofore live cattle were transported to, and slaughtered at, the places of consumption. ”

“ The food of human beings, except infants, should be derived directly and wholly from the Plant Kingdom—embracing an almost limitless variety of tree fruits and small fruits, nuts, grains, roots, tubers, tender leaves and stalks, saps, etc., which may be used in their natural state, or when necessary cooked and prepared in simple, wholesome ways, without the use of animal admixtures, or of mineral except perhaps salt.
No food should be used which necessitates slaughter. Even animal milk and its products, and eggs, would better be discarded ”

“ Although large quantities of fish and game are marketed every year at certain seasons, they form a small fraction of the animal food required in the country, and we must now depend for most of our animal food, not on that which was at first given us for a natural resource but on that raised by man.
The poultry—the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys; the cattle, beef and dairy, the hogs and the sheep that are raised in such vast numbers have taken the place of wild game. The cultivated varieties have higher food value, and are far more satisfactory, since they are ready for use at any time. ”

“ To illustrate: poultry can not be kept healthy confined in a shed without sand, gravel, old mortar, or some similar preparation; indeed, for the best results they must have green food also, as lettuce, cabbage, chopped green clover, grass, etc. ”

“ All these aliments of the vegetable kingdom exist in the air, and in sufficient quantities to supply all the requirements of vegetation; so that the air, together with a few metallic oxides (salts) derived from the earth, furnishes food for the whole vegetable tribe, from the highest to the lowest, and these vegetables in their turn supply all the food which the animal tribes consume, for [Pg 119] although one animal feeds upon others, yet these must previously have derived their nourishment from vegetable matter. ”