Most foods cannot be stored and stored for long periods of time. Because after a certain period of time, the food goes into the process of decay. So we are not able to store many kinds of food in our food store. Of course, our ancestors developed a method of preparing certain foods correctly and keeping them for a long time. For example, radish or greens can be kept for a long time and eaten by making gundruk or sinki. By making such meat dry (dry meat), the taste of the tongue could be changed from time to time. Soybeans can be kept for months by buying them (an original dish of the Limbu caste).
There are many methods in which any food can be stored for a long time. This made our food store always full, and sometimes the taste of the tongue changed. On the other hand, the world's population growth rate is declining compared to the current rate of food production. For the last few years, the Kovid epidemic has been plaguing the world. It has also affected farming. All of this is having a direct impact on our food supply.
How to save food in such a background? How to store any food for a long time? How to save seeds? An article published on the BBC is translated here.
How to secure food?
Experts say that if food is well preserved, it can be stored for years. Also the nutrients in it can be kept right. Any food spoils when germs enter it. If bacteria are not allowed to grow in the food, it can be preserved and used for a long time.
For centuries, people have come up with a variety of methods to store food and preserve it for a long time. Such as keeping food dry, putting salt in it, adding sugar, using chemicals or in airtight containers.
Michael Sulu, a food expert at University College London, says the best way is to keep food dry. Once the food is dry, there is no risk of bacteria growing in it. In the same way, food should not rot even if it is kept in an airtight container. Where air does not penetrate, germs do not grow. For example, meat is damaged by anaerobic bacteria. This bacterium grows and spreads in areas with low oxygen content.
It can also be preserved by adding salt to food. However, this method may not be appropriate. This method cannot be applied to all foods. However, meat can be stored for a long time by drying and adding salt.
Even with a heavy layer of sugar on top, food may be stored for a long time.
Especially sugar does not allow any kind of bacteria to remain. That is why chocolate or sweets can be eaten for a long time. But if sugar is added to other foods such as dried fruits, milk, starch or eggs, the age of the food is reduced.
The traditional method
The Mac MacDonald's Bake Mac Burger is probably the best preserved food in Iceland. There the burger is kept in a glass box where the amount of air is limited. It could be kept in the supermarket for a long time to meet the demand. So it contained food preservatives, which did not allow food to rot.
Twinkie made of sugar is also a popular snack. It can be eaten at home for a long time. Its actual lifespan is only a few weeks. However, the maker of these snacks adopted some rules and protected them for 44 years. There is a video on YouTube showing a 27-year-old twinkling.
As for honey, it can be consumed for many years. Because it does not contain water, it also has a natural preservative that prevents bacteria from growing in it.
The oldest honey specimen in the world was found in the tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt and the tomb in Georgia, which is three thousand years old. The way food is preserved is still the same as it was thousands of years ago.
By pressing on the ground or on ice
Lots of fatty things like oil, ghee, butter can also be stored for a long time. A kind of butter was found in Ireland and Scotland, which was four thousand years old. It was buried in the swampy ground.
It is said that in ancient times people used to keep butter or animal fat in the soil according to some principle or belief. They probably used this method to prevent theft or to use it for a long time.
As far as alcohol is concerned, the older the wine, the better. A bottle of the world's oldest wine was found in an ancient Roman tomb in Germany. These bottles are about 1700 years old. However, the alcohol in it has not been tasted yet. Similarly, the oldest bottle of champagne is 200 years old.
Meat can also be kept cold and ice at low temperatures for a long time. The bodies of some of these animals were found in the snow of the lake, which had been buried in the ice for a long time but had not rotted.
