Lexicon International School

Zoom online class note sheet

Science
Grade – 08
Unit 13
Food preservation.
Activity 13.1

Materials

Cow milk, rice, fresh fish, a sealed bottle of sterilized milk, a packet of dried sprats, dried jak fruit, lime
pickle, dried fish

Method

The sample of provided food samples were kept to expose to air.

The color and texture of those samples were observed everyday along for the week.

Then observations were recorded as below.

Observations

Food type Observations

Cow milk Odour comes out and milk is coagulated
Rice Odour comes out and rice are appeared sticky
texture, color change to yellowish brown color
Fresh fish Odour comes out and flies were covered surface of
fish, color of the blood turns to dark brownish
color.
A sealed bottle of sterilized milk No texture or color change. It remains as it is.
A packet of dried sprats No texture or color change occurs. It remains as it
is.
Dried jak fruits No texture or color change. It remains as it is
Lime pickles No texture or color change. It remains as it is
Dried fish No texture or color change. It remains as it is

Conclusion

It is very clear that a sealed bottle of sterilized milk, a packet of dried sprats, dried jak fruits, lime pickles
and dried fish are preserved well. So there is no any texture or color change occurs in those samples.
Those samples are remaining as previous.
But when we consider about cow milk, rice and fresh fish are not preserved foods. Within few

hours’ texture, odour, color and other properties of those foods are changed.

Need of food preservation.

According to above activity we observed that food samples are spoiled when it expose to atmospheric
air without any preservation. Most of the time food samples are spoiled mainly due to the growth and
action of the microorganisms that live in our surround.

Eg: coagulation of milk, growth of mould on bread, spoilage of food, coconut oil going to rancid.

Furthermore, food can spoil by the damage of insects such as weevils and grain borers growing on food.

Eg: weevils spoiling cereals and pulses such as paddy, gram and green grams

Some vegetables and fruits become unsuitable for consumption because they are subjected to bruises,
cuts, lacerations, squashes and bumpt due to not following correct technological methods during
harvesting, packing and marketing. Therefore microorganisms can easily act on such damage foods very
fast.

Sometimes due to chemical compounds inside the foods like enzymes are causes to self-degradation of
those foods.

Eg: Maturation, Ripening, putrefaction of fruits

Due to these factors humans are developed preservation methods as our need in day today life. In these
foods preservation attempts are made to preserve nutritional value and other characteristics in food
items.

What is known as food preservation?

The process of making food stay longer by artificially controlling the factors affecting food spoilage is
called food preservation.

Advantages of food preservation

 Reduction of food spoilage

 Prevention of food poisoning
 Usage of excess food
 Processing them to be used in off seasons.

In order to preserve foods we have to control factors which causes to food spoilage. Some preservation
measures are given below.

 Preventing microorganisms getting to the food

 Controlling the temperature and water content to minimize the microbial activity on
food
 Prevention of damage caused by macro organisms.
There are modern methods and traditional methods to food preservation.

Traditional methods for food preservation.

These are practices of food preservation which comes from the ancient times in our civilization.

Salting

Mango, Lime, Fish

Smoking
Drying
Meat, Fish, Garcenia
Jak, bread fruit,
(goraka)
paddy, green gram,
Traditional methods
chilies

Immersing in bee honey

Meat
Keeping under dry
sand

Lime, ginger, jak,

seeds