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How
to extend food expiry ?
Food
emulsions are widely used in our daily lives. Examples
include milk, ice creams, salads, dairy products etc.
Since emulsions are inherently unstable due to creaming
and coalescence of the drops, emulsion based commercial
products need to be stabilized. Addition of Proteins
and polysaccharides slows down the destabilizing processes,
thereby increasing the shelf life of emulsion products.
Prediction of the shelf life is important and population
balance framework serves this need well. It however
requires estimates for size dependent creaming and coalescence
rates. Presently, such information can be obtained only
through experiments. Experimentally, the direct determination
method is very tedious and alternative strategies are
needed. The project aims at developing a mathematical
technique to obtain the required information from the
measurements of changes in the drop size distributions.
In order to predict the shelf life under a variety of
conditions, the effect of various variables (protein
type, salt concentration, pH) on the rate processes
also needs to be studied and quantified.
Temperature
Within
reason, the key to prolonging the storage life of your
edibles lies in lowering the temperature of the area
in which they are stored. The storage lives of most
foods are cut in half by every increase of 18 F (10
degrees Celsius). For example, if you've stored your
food in a garage that has a temperature of 90 F then
you should expect a shelf life less than half of what
could be obtained at room temperature (70 F) which in
turn is less than half the storage life that you could
get if you kept them in your refrigerator at 40 F. Your
storage area should be located where the temperature
can be kept above freezing (32 F) and, if possible,
below 72 F.
Humidity
Ideally, your storage location should have a humidity
level of 15% or less, but unless you live in the desert
it's not terribly likely you'll be able to achieve this
so you'll have to do the best that you can. Regardless,
moisture is not good for your stored edibles so you
want to minimize it as much as possible. This can be
done by several methods. The first is to keep your storage
location air-conditioned during the warm and humid times
of the year. The second is to package the goods in storage
containers impervious to moisture and then to deal with
the moisture trapped inside.
To preserve food longer in the refrigerator?
You must not introduce hot food in the refrigerator,
let them cool off first. Clean the fish before introducing
to the fridge and put some parsley to avoid bad smells
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