What is Food preservation?
'''Food preservation''' is about the ways and means which help to preserve [[food]]. Food spoils from [[bacteria]] if it is not treated. For thousands of years, humans have used methods of preserving food, so that they can store food to eat later. The simplest methods of preserving food, such as drying strips of [[fish]] or [[meat]] in the hot sun have been used for thousands of years, and they are still used today by [[indigenous people]]s. The other ancient method is to use salt, and often drying and salting are done together. Food spoils mainly by [[decomposition]] by [[microorganism|microorganisms]]. There are five basic techniques which make food last longer: # Killing the microorganisms, or preventing them from multiplying # Contact of microoganisms with food is prevented # Certain [[additive|additives]] prevent or slow the growth of microoganisms; this is often called [[Curing (food preservation)|curing]] Usually several of the techniques are combined. ==Methods of preserving food== [[Image:Konservering.jpg|thumb|right|Different methods of preserving food in industrialized countries: food is heated and sealed in jars or cans]] Common ways of preserving food are: *[[Heat]]ing the food or baking it (a hard corn-flour biscuit stays edible much longer than a bowl of fresh corn) *[[Pasteurization]]: [[Louis Pasteur]] found that simply heating food kills most [[microorganism|microorganisms]] and makes it last longer. [[Liquid|Liquids]] such as [[milk]] are commonly [[pasteurization|pasteurized]]. However, the heating has to be done precisely according to a procedure *Converting the food into a longer-lasting form (for example, fresh goat's [[milk]] can be converted into [[cheese]] or [[yogurt]], which lasts much longer than fresh milk) *[[Pickling]]: putting [[vegetable]]s, [[meat]], or [[fish]] in salty water ([[brine]]). [[salting (food)|Salting]] the food: Covering it with dry salt *Putting the food in a jar with [[alcohol]] ([[ethanol]]) or [[vinegar]], also called pickling *Putting large amounts of [[