Nutrition and Dietetics; A Manual for Students of Medicine, Trained Nurses, Dietitians in Hospitals Other Institutions

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV THE PREPARATION OF POODS A. THE CARE OF PERISHABLE FOODS Under this head it is proposed briefly to discuss the immediate care in the kitchen of these perishable foods. Preservation of perishable foods, such as meats and fruits for use at some future time, will be discussed in detail under the heading " Food Preservation." The perishable foods are those which quickly deteriorate and become inedible because of decay, various forms of fermentation, or in the case of crisp garden vegetables, wilting and drying. No rational and consistent regime for reducing this decay of perishable foods can be devised without a knowledge of the causes at work to bring about the decay. Decay and fermentation are caused by bacterial action. The souring of milk, as discussed in the preceding chapter, is a bacterial action. Rancidity of butter, decay of fruits and vegetables, are likewise in each case the work of a microorganism. These microorganisms usually produce spores or minute dust-like particles in one phase of their life history. These dust-like spores readily find lodgment in kitchens, to be easily stirred up and settle upon the fresh-food products brought into the cellar or kitchen, and start the process of decay or fermentation in these. It goes without saying that the first step in kitchen and cellar sanitation with a view to the easy preservation of perishable foods is a complete renovation and cleaning of these parts of the house in which foods are kept. A cellar should not only be absolutely freed of its dust, but to be well adapted for the preservation of fresh fruits, vegetables, milk, and meat, it should be clean, cool, dry, and dark. Sometimes the conditions are such that it is impossible to produce all of the last three requisites of a good food cellar, but there c...