Food Preservation Methods

PRESERVATION METHODS

Many foods cannot be stored as such and need to undergo a treatment or a tech-nique which helps to prevent spoilage. The techniques adopted to preserve the foods are grouped into traditional tech-niques and modern industrial techniques.

Traditional techniques include curing, freezing, boiling, heating, sugaring, pick-ling, canning, smoking, salting and fer-mentation. Modern industrial technique involve pasteurization, vacuum packing, artificial food additives and irradiation.

In this chapter, preservation tech-niques are discussed under the following headings. They are use of low tempera-ture, use of high temperature, dehydra-tion, use of chemical preservatives and preservation by high osmotic pressure.