José María Alejandra
Miss Yanina Elías Miss Wendy Colorado
Food Preservation Methods
Curing is any of various food preservation and flavoring processes, Specially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, Nitrite or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring or cooking.
Food curing dates back to ancient times, both in the form of Smoked meat and as salt-curing meat. The plains Indians hung their meat at the top of their teepees to increase the amount of smoke coming into contact with the food.
Meat is not only the food that can be cured, also vegetables such as runner beans and cabbage are preserved in this manner.
Curing salt was developed as a cure for meat, poultry, game, and fish. Actual ingredients may vary from brand to brand but typically contain a combination of high grade salt, sugar, both sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite, curing agents and propylene glycol to keep the mixture uniform.
Salting is used because most bacteria, fungi and other potentially pathogenic organisms cannot survive in a highly salt environment.