TRICKS FOR PRESERVING FOOD PROPERTIES FOR LONGER

Learning to adequately preserve food allows then to retain all their essential nutrients and makes them last longer in our pantries and freezers. For this reason, it’s important to know small tricks which will help us keep our food in the best state possible, not only during the summer. You will need airtight containers and jars, as well as kitchen paper and plastic bags, they will be your greatest allies in this objective. Another key point, before beginning to ask around for advice, is to avoid raw foods come in contact with cooked food, whether inside the fridge or outside; thus, it is advisable to place the prepared dishes in the top of the fridge and all uncooked food in the bottom. Another non-written rule we should all keep in mind is to avoid storing fruits and vegetables together, as – due to many of these foods emitting ethylene gas – if we place them together, they will rot faster and will lose some of their properties and vitamins.

Tricks for preserving food properties for longer.

One of the most common ways of preserving our food for longer is to freeze it, a process which, in addition to eliminating parasites present in fish, such as anisakis, allows for the consumption of those products to be delayed without it supposing a loss of nutrients or flavour, as long as it is carried out adequately, using special bags and containers. You must keep in mind that not all food or dishes should be frozen, as is the case, for example, with hard-boiled eggs, cooked potatoes or raw tomatoes as their quality will diminish. Don’t forget to never freeze anything that has already been thawed.

Other popular natural preservation techniques are to vacuum pack, preventing the air from oxidising our food and bacteria from forming, fermentation, ideal method for wine or beer, dehydration, which entails removing the water from the products, leaving them dried, the use of vinegar as an optimum preservative for certain vegetables, or salting, used for meat and fish. There are also those who lean more towards bain-marie, placing the food in glass jars filled with water which will later be boiled in a pot, also filled with water, for approximately fifty minutes. More rudimentary, but equally effective, is the process of preserving with sand and salt, used to keep potatoes or onion, and must be in a dry place, removed from sunlight.

We will now pass on small tricks, for specific foods, which will be very useful. We will begin with fruit, it is recommended that it be kept in the lower drawer of the fridge in order to be better preserved, except for bananas which will turn black. Something else to keep in mind is that apples ripen the fruit placed around them, so it’s best to keep them separate. If we want our vegetables to stay fresh, we must put them in the fridge, placing a clean, dry sponge next to them in the lower drawer of the fridge, as it will absorb excess humidity and will prevent them from getting moistened and rotting faster.

For meat, protect it with the special wrapping it came in from the butcher’s or in cling film, in order for it to maintain its original colour and be better preserved; if you want to avoid a smelly fridge, smear the meat in oil. Fish should also be placed in the coldest part of the fridge and packed in an airtight container so as to prevent its smell from impregnating other foods.

A very useful tip for better preserving onions is to wrap them individually in aluminium foil, if what you’re trying to preserve is half an onion, smear it with butter and keep in mind that, once started, it is not recommended to keep for more than a day as it generates toxins. Eggs should stay fresh for longer if you submerge them in olive oil for a few seconds and place them in the fridge with the pointy side down.

We hope you’ve found these simple tips practical,and that they help to lengthen the life span of your essentials and better preserve their properties.