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Food is one of the most essential element in our lives. Without food people will die. There are some places especially in places with extreme climate when they need to preserve food. Now! What is this Food preservation? This means retaining food over a period of time without being contaminated by pathogenic organisms or chemicals and without losing its texture, colour, flavor and nutritive value.

Preservation of food is done during the months when food is available in large quantity and is therefore priced very low. This helps in making preserved foods economical. Generally many of us feel that why we need to preserve food? The main reason is for the seasonal availability of food and the different types of food that are grown only at different locations. What are the advantages of preserving the food?

1. Increases the shelf life of the food
2. Retains the quality of food such as colour, flavor, texture and nutritive value
3. Increases food supply
4. Adds variety to the food
5. Decreases wastage of food

Every day the first thing that we do in the kitchen is boil milk. Other works include refrigerate food or put dry ingredients in the sun or store food items in air tight containers. But have you ever thought why you need to do all these. Yes! That’s right coz these are simple practices that help in increasing the shelf life of food or preserve it.

Importance of food preservation: Now that you have understood the concept of food preservation, here let’s see what the importance of food preservation is:

1. Preservation takes care of the excess produce: Whenever there is surplus amount of product, we tend to store them by preserving using different methods. Mangoes are one such awesome fruit that is preserved in various forms. They are made into juice, squash, papad, mango pulp, mango pickle, raw mango powder etc.  The same is also done with lime, amla (gooseberry), chilli peppers etc.
2. Preservation adds variety to our meals:  There are some seasonal vegetables like cauliflower, peas etc that we love to eat, hence peas are preserved and stored for use when it is not available. In the same way, eating some chutney, papad or pickle along with the meals adds to the variety in our meals.
3.  Preserved food items are sent to places where they are not grown: In the state of Rajasthan which is desert area and the Himalayan regions that are covered with snow most of the time, thus very few food items can be grown. Therefore preserved food items can be sent to such places.
4. Preservation of foods makes transportation and storage of foods easier:  Preservation also reduces bulk of a food item. For example, if you dry green leafy vegetables such as mint, fenugreek, coriander, etc, their weight and volume reduces, thus making their storage and transportation easy.

Types of Natural Preservatives: Some of the commonly used natural preservatives are lime juice, salt, sugar, vinegar, oil and spices. You will also find some chemical preservatives that include potassium metabisulphite, sodium benzoate, citric acid etc.

Food Preservation Methods: The methods of food preservation are done through: Heat processing, Dehydration, Chemical preservation, Canning, Pasteurization and Freezing.

1. Canning:  It is the process of heating the product at a specified temperature for a specific length of time (pasteurizing).
2. Drying:   This is the process of dehydrating foods until there is not enough moisture to support microbial activity.
3. Freezing:  In this process, the foods are chilled at least to 0 deg F.
4. Fermenting:   This is the process of encouraging the growth of ‘good bugs’ to inhibit the ‘bad bugs’ that can spoil food. You could produce a wide range of products such as wine, sauerkraut, yogurt etc.
5. Pickling:  Process of soaking food in a solution containing salt, acid or alcohol. Pickling is often combined with another method such as canning, fermenting or refrigerating.
6. Curing:   This process is similar to pickling and uses salt, acid or nitrites.
7. Smoking:   This is a complimentary process to curing that improves the flavor and appearance of food and can also act as a drying agent.

Food preservation is a process of slowing down food from becoming bad and making the food lasts longer and also prevents food wastage.  So next time, if you have any foods in surplus, store and preserve them rightly to use them later! At Vahrehvah, we offer you with a wide range of healthy, nutritious, air fried snacks and delicious recipes that are quick and easy to prepare using very little oil.

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