Learning Certain Facts That Go With Food Processing

Jun 15, 2010 @ 08:06 am by Guest Author

As a child spending lots of time at my grandmother’s house, I learned a ton about growing foods and preserving them. My grandmother had her own greenhouse and she taught me how to process food, though we used different methods from those utilized by many of the big food manufacturers.

The processing of food began in the days before recorded history. People had to preserve food to survive, so they dried or froze their vegetables and meat and they stored roots in cool, dry areas. Some foods were salted to increase the amount of time they would keep. Processing and preserving food was a matter of survival.

Today, not all food processing is done by manufacturers. Many people process foods in their homes simply to preserve them, although the methods are more advanced than they were in prehistory. Growing up, I learned to not only grow foods but to prepare and process them as well. I learned to can fruits and vegetables, blanche and freeze vegetables, and freeze or process meat in a pressure canner to keep it from spoiling.

It’s worth noting that while these foods were all processed, they weren’t unhealthy in the way that most processed foods from major corporations are. We used salt and sugar in the process but the foods were still quite healthy.

Since we know that it’s possible to process foods and still keep them healthy, why are there so many additives in the food at the grocery store today? They do make the food last longer, but it doesn’t seem like a very good deal to trade our health so that our food can have a longer shelf life.

I feel that corporations have added some of these substances to improve the taste of their foods and keep us buying them. Many foods have large amounts of salt added, which enhances the flavors of the food. So many of the foods we consume on a daily basis have added salt that we’re now accustomed to the extra sodium.

Food that doesn’t have added salt can easily be distinguished, and it doesn’t taste as good to us. The same is true of the sugar and fat that’s added to our foods.

The situation has improved in recent years, however. Under the scrutiny of nutritionists and the media for the unhealthy nature of many of the products in the grocery store, many food producers have moved toward foods prepared and preserved through more natural and healthy methods.

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