Beyond Room Temperature-How Different Temperatures Allow for Food Safety
Sometimes it’s warm out, sometimes it feels cold. Shelter is on the short list of things humans need to survive. Even when shelter was found (or made), most times it merely provided relief from exposure (death from freezing) and over-heating (in the form of shade, usually). With the advancement of technology came modern heating and cooling systems, which have allowed for an entirely new concept to arise in the human brain: room temperature.
While room temperature has been a blessing, certain things, most importantly medicine and food, require specific temperatures in order to keep themselves intact. Those two topics would take at least a blog each to cover, so this author has chosen to write about the correct preservation temperature(s) for foodstuffs. Trust A-1 American Services, the ac repair Virginia Beach experts, to know about refrigeration!
Much of the food we eat requires different levels of refrigeration for its safe storage. This includes meat, many types of fruit, vegetables, filtered water and even candy (take it from this author, candy is great chilled!). Most of the time the packaging will instruct you as to the proper level of refrigeration. Most meat, for example, should be kept in the freezer, while the freezing of fruits would deprive them of most of their nutrients (not to mention taste). The reasons for this are rather technical, and for a most in-depth look at the science behind it all, check out a medical journal (snore) such as this one. But let’s see if we can scratch the surface.
Food begins to wither the moment it has been harvested. When a man killed a buffalo, for instance, he had to eat it there and then, lest it rot. If a man killed a fish, he had to eat then and there quickly; this is why you don’t buy sushi at a gas station, kids! The same goes true for fruit, believe it or not. Fruit won’t rot, necessarily, but it will become overripe. For fruit, there is a happy medium between between being too “green” and being “yellow and spotty,” in the case of a banana. With meat, you must eat it as soon as you kill it, or it other animals will begin to. Bacteria, worms, fly larvae, and other unmentionables love the newly killed animal as much as you do! Then man realized his ability to properly store his kill.
You may be thinking: “man could always make a fire to kill off bacteria and other organisms!” Well, yes he could (and even that took a
while to discover), but even this sanitization process was temporary. After the meat had been cooked (and thus sanitized), new organisms, worms, etc. would come again to eat the meat. What man was lacking was a place where tiny carnivorous organisms could never enter, not just temporarily but permanently. The solution was the freezing point.
Check out this List of food-borne illnesses provided by the Centers for Disease Control. It lists over 250 known bacteria and viruses.
Our story doesn’t begin with refrigeration, however. It begins with salt. In ancient times, salt was as prized as gold for its ability to store meats, and so being it was distributed with care and value throughout the world. The word “salary,” in fact, is even derived from “salt.” In Roman times, centurions and legionnaires were paid wages, at least in part, that were comprised of salt. Fun fact - the Romans were also the first to invent the early forms of central air conditioning Virginia Beach locals know and love. Another fun fact - our HVAC Newport News, VA company has the most experienced air conditioning technicians in Hampton Roads.
Salt had its drawbacks, though. If it became wet, it became useless, among other things. The exact date and method of the discovery of food preservation is unknown, but ice soon took the place of salt as the chosen method of preservation. Thanks to refrigeration technology, we can simply take a trip to the grocery and enjoy our meat or fruits or vegetables whenever we want them!
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