Preservation

(noun)

Food preservation is the process of treating and handling food to stop or slow down food spoilage, loss of quality, edibility, or nutritional value and thus allow for longer food storage.

Related Terms

Examples of Preservation in the following topics:

  • Food Preservation

    • Food preservation is the process of treating food to stop or slow down spoilage, loss of quality, edibility, or nutritional value.
    • Maintaining or creating nutritional value, texture and flavor is an important aspect of food preservation, although, historically, some methods drastically altered the character of the food being preserved.
    • Most commonly subjected to this method of food preservation are meats and fish that have undergone curing.
    • Preservative food additives can be antimicrobial.
    • Pickling is a method of preserving food in an edible anti-microbial liquid.

  • Low Temperatures

    • Refrigeration preserves food by slowing down the growth and reproduction of microorganisms and the action of enzymes which cause food to rot.
    • Refrigeration is also used to facilitate the preservation of liquid medicines or other substances used for research where microbial growth is undesirable, often combined with added preservatives.
    • For longer periods of preservation, freezing temperatures are preferred to refrigeration.
    • Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved their game and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season.
    • Long-term preservation of food may call for food storage at even lower temperatures.

  • Preserving Bacterial Cultures

    • As a practical matter, as a researcher, you will want to preserve your selected bacteria so you can go back to it if something goes wrong.
    • In order to ensure a pure culture is being preserved, pick a single colony of the bacteria off a plate, grow it overnight in the appropriate liquid media, and with shaking .
    • Bacteria that have been preserved in glycerol stocks can be grown overnight in liquid media to promote propagation.

  • Desiccation

    • Preservation is possible because the greatly reduced water content inhibits the action of microorganisms and enzymes that would normally spoil or degrade the substance.
    • Drying is also a method for food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which inhibits the growth of microorganisms.
    • Open air drying using sun and wind has been practiced since ancient times to preserve food.

  • Osmotic Pressure

    • They are widely applied in food preservation.
    • Sugar is used to preserve fruits, either in syrup with fruit such as apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums or in crystallized form where the preserved material is cooked in sugar to the point of crystallisation and the resultant product is then stored dry.
    • From time to time, sugaring has also been used for non-food preservation.

  • High Pressure

    • High pressure processing (HPP), pascalization or bridgmanization, is a method of preserving and sterilizing food, in which a product is processed under very high pressure, leading to the inactivation of certain microorganisms and enzymes in the food.
    • These spores, which caused a lack of preservation in the earlier experiments, were inactivated faster by moderate pressure, but in a manner different from what occurred with vegetative microbes.
    • Although commercial products preserved by pascalization first emerged in 1990, the technology behind pascalization is still being perfected for widespread use.

  • Fermented Foods

    • Fermentation is also employed in the leavening of bread (CO2 produced by yeast activity); in preservation techniques to produce lactic acid in sour foods such as sauerkraut, dry sausages, kimchi, and yogurt; and in the pickling of foods with vinegar (acetic acid).
    • Preservation of substantial amounts of food through lactic acid, alcohol, acetic acid, and alkaline fermentations.

  • Citric Acid and Other Organic Compounds

    • It is used as a food additive to give a sour taste to foods or to preserve certain qualities of food products (e.g., prevents separating of the fats in ice cream).
    • It has natural antibacterial properties and is used as a preservative as well.

  • Clonal Selection and Tolerance

    • The cells with useful receptors are preserved, and many potentially harmful, self antigen-reactive cells are eliminated by processes of selection induced by antigen receptor engagement .
    • The preservation of useful specificities is called positive selection.

  • Vaccine Safety

    • Vaccines are made with a variety of ingredients including antigens, stabilizers, adjuvants, and preservatives; they may also contain residual by-products from the production process.