CHAPTER l

PRINCIPLES OF PRESERV4.TION

~VER ~ince man gave up his ~rboreal habits and settled down to a pastoral
life, his efforts _have been directed towards gathering and storing food s,
wh~n they are In plenty, to meet his needs during the days of scarcity.
This became. more and more imperative as be made rapid strides towards
a higher ~oct~l status _and civilization. In the case of f oodgrains, nature
helped him 1n reducing their moisture content to a level when they
could be stored carefully without much deterioration. In the cold regions,
the low temperatures prevailing there helped to prolong the keeping
quality of perishable foods such as meat and fish. In the hot regions,
the sun helped to dry 9ut perishable foods like fruits, vegetables, meat,
fish, etc., so that the dried material could be kept longer. In some cases,
salting as in the case of fish and some of the vegetables, and natural
fermentation as in the case of wines, ciders, vinegar, etc., extended to
man the availability of a few of his important foods. In the majority of
cases, heat o~ cold was the principal agent employed to preserve many
of his foods. Even today the same principle is employed for preservation
of perishable foods, although the technical advances in its application have
been most amazing.
The 'biltong' of South Africa, which is a form of sun dried meat is
a typical early example of its class of preserved foods. Dried fruits and
fermented beverages have been known to man from time immemorial.
Pickles of vegetables and fruits, and of fish, also have been popular for
hundreds of years. Many of these techniques of pres~rv~tion o! fo~ds
have, however, in · recent times, been placed on a scientific basis, with
the·· result that today food preservation industry is perhaps the largest
ind us try in the world.
The modern methods of food preservation in general and of fruit and
vegetable preservation in particular may be broadly classified as follows :

I. Physical Methods
(a) By removal of heat 1. Refrigeration
(preservation by cold) 11 _ Freezing preservation
111. Dehydro freezing preservation
·
IV. Carbonation
(b) By addition of heat i Stationary pasteurization
(thermal processing) ii. Agitating pasteurization/steriliza-
tion
 PRESERVATION OF FRUITS Al\D VEGETABLES
2
iii. Flash pasteurization/HTST
processing etc.
(c) By removal of water 1. Sun-drying
(evaporation or dehydration) ii. Dehydration
111. Low temperature evaporation
or concentration
1v. Freeze-drying
v. Accelerated freeze-drying
v1. Foam-mat drying
vu. Puff drying, -etc.
(d) By irradiation Dosing with U. V. or 10n1zmg
radiation etc.

II. Chemical Methods

(a) By addition of acid Pickled vegetables, fish, and meat

such as vinegar or .lactic acid
(b) By salting or brining Vegetable/fruit pickles, salted fish,
etc.
salt-cured meat and pork etc.
(c) By addition o( sugar and Fruit preseryes, jams, jellies,
heating marmalades, etc.
(d) By addition of chemical 1. Using water soluble salts of
preservatives sulphur dioxide, benzo1c acid,
sorbic acid and a few like
hydrogen peroxide, etc. which
are permitted as harmless :n
food:i.
11 •• By means of substances of
bacterial origin such as tyJo-
sin, resin, etc. which are
permitted to a limited ex-
tent, in some cases as harm-
less additives.

III. By Fermentation

Alcoholic and acetous fer-

mentation · as in the case of
fruit wines, apple cider, fruit,
vinegar, etc.
 PRINCIPLES OF PRESERVA rroN 3

IV. By Other Methodg

A judicious combination of
one or more of the methods
mentioned above for synergis-
tic preservation.
Although all the main classes of presuvation have been employed
in varying extents in the case of a variety of fruits and vegetables, some
of them are of particular significance now in view of their economic im-
portance. They are efficient, comparatively simple in operation, have
univers'al application and as such have attained commercial importance.
Some of the more important applications of the different methods
are mentioned briefly in the following section. More detailed applications
of such methods will be described in the subsequent chapters. Preservation
by addition of heat in variou~ ways is perhaps the earliest and the most
common method of preservation~ It is generally known as prese_rvation by
canning or heat processing in hermetically sealed containers made of tin
plate or glass, or more recently of heat-resistant plastic materials. Both
solid and liquid foods are preserved on a very large scale by this method.
Next in importance is the drying or dehydration method. Sun-drying is
extensively employed in many parts of the world to dry a variety of fruits
and vegetables and sometimes fish and meat. Dehydration or artificial
drying of fruits and vegetables is extensively employed, and many
improvements have been introduced to obtain dried products of excellent
q~ality. Low temperature drying, freeze-drying, accelerated freeze-drying
foam-mat drying, etc. are refinements in the techi:iique of dehydration.
Fre~ze preservation, which is an extension of the well-known method
of increasing the storage life of fresh fruits and vegetables, and similar
other fresh food-stuffs, is extensively 'employed more i~ the case of fish
·and meat, although it is being employed to a limited extent in the case of
some fruits and vegetables such as peach, pear, peas, beans, etc. With the
introduction of deep-freeze cabinets at home and facility for transport in the
frozen state and the resulting convenience to the housewife, this method
of preservation is likely to develop rapidly in the near future, especially
in the more advanced countries, with a highly sophisticated way of living
It cannot, however, completely substitute or replace the conventional
canning of foods which, in spite of its drawbacks, continues to hold the
field on account of its numerous advantages and conveniences.
Preservation by addition of sugar and application of heat is a highly
important method in the case of fruits which are utilized in a very large
quantities to · make jams, jellies, marmalades and preserves . This method
is simp]e, chea,p and easy to adopt, and hence its universal p~pularity.
The use of chemical additives, which are permitted as harmless,
within limits is fairly widespread in the case of a variety of squashes,
 PRESERVATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
4
. 1 and other beverages. At present, only sulphur dioxide and· .
cord1a s . t· · d • . its
nzoic acid and some o its ester erivat1ves are permi'tt d .
salts an d be . · . e 1n
·c acid or sorbates are also permitted only in some
foo d s. Sor bl . . . . . • . . cases.
bac terial ong m such as n1sin, ty 1osm, etc. are still 10 the sc
P ro d uc t Of . reen.
.mg st age. A large ' number
. . of
. other chemicals
. such as formaldeh d
Y e,
bromo-acetic acid, saltcyhc _a~1d, ~tc., w~1ch were once used as preserva-
tives, have now been proh1b1ted tn foods on account of their harmful
nature.
Preservation by fermentation is a very ancient and well-known method.
Yeast-fermented fruit wines, which contain ethyl alcohol as a hatural
preservative, have been prepared . and used for hundreds of years. Such
alcoholic liquid·s undergo _further acetic acid fermentation into vinegar,
which is an acidulant and is widely employed in pickling. Other well-
known f1 uit win.es besides grapewine are apple cider, berry wines, etc.
Preservation by salting or brining of vegetables such as cucumber,
cabbage, bamboo shoots etc., and of unripe fruits such as those of mango,
lime, lemon, etc., is very common in many parts of the world where Indian
pickles are well known. Sometimes, pickled vegetables, onion etc., are
preserved in clear vinegar to get products having attractive appearance.
Such vinegar pickles are highly prized in western countries.
Preservation of fruits and vegetables by application of U.V. ·a nd
ionizing radiation is of recent origin. T~ere · is considerable interest in
this t~chnique, especially in view of the fact that cheap sources of irra-
diation have become freely available as a result of development of atomic
energy installations in some parts of the world. Although, the results
appear to -be promising, it will take quite sometime before it could be
guaranteed _ as completely harmless and ·free from any health hazard.
There is, however, a great deal of interest at present in the subject.
In the present book, emphasis has been placed on those methods and
techniques of preservation of fruits and vegetables which have wider
application and greater impact on the economic• feasibility and large-scale
development of the fruit and vegetable preserva~ion indastry. The scope
for application of the newer and less known methods of preservation has
also been highlighted, wherever they appear to be promising.

CANNING AND BOTTLING FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

hIt is a. common e xpenence

· t h at frmts,
. vegetables }neats, and many
ot er articles of food spoil rapidly unless speciall/ cared for. Various
th
me k~ds for preserving these, such as pickling in salt or vinegar drying,
smo mg · · ' ·
f . ' preser~mg in sugar or honey etc. I have been developed since
ime immemorial Can .. . . '
technique It d · ning is, however, comparatively a modern
the
close . of
1
l 8t~:~ped under. the stress of war conditions towards the
ntury. Dunng Napoleonic wars, the French Govern-
 PRINCIPLES OF PRESERVATION 5
ment announced a prize of 12,000 Francs for the discovery of a satisfactory
method of preservation so that food cou]d be transported to the fighting
forces over long distances without spoiling. In 1810 Nicholas Appert, a
Paris confectioner and distiller invented a process for preserving foods
in glass containers, took out a patent for his process, and won the prize.
He also published a book - "The Art of Preserving Animal and Vege•
table Substances for Many Years", which is the first known work on
modern canning. In honour of its discovering canning is still known as
'Appertizing'.
Appert packed his food in glass containers, added sufficient · water to
cover the food, placed the corks loosely on top and heated the containers
in a water-bath to obtain a temperature of 87°C to I00°C at the centre
of the containers. The containers were sealed fairly air-tight by driving
in the corks. By this method, he succeeded in preserving several kinds of
foods. He ascribed this_ preserving action to the exclusion of outside air.
Gay-Lussac, who studied Appert's process at the instance of the French
Government, concluded that spoilage in foods was essentia1ly a process
of oxidation which could be prevented by the exclusion of air from the
container. This hypothesis w~s universally accepted till the time of Louis
Pasteur who provided correct explanation of the change through his dis-
covery ofmicrobes, round about 1860. By his experiments on heat treat-
ment, he proved that micro-organisms are the real cause cf spoilage and
that by destroying these, foods can be preserved in suitabJe containers.
He introduced the word 'Pasteurization', which means heat-treatment of
food at a sufficiently high temperature to kill the majority, though not
all, of the micro-organisms, such as bacteria, moulds and yeasts present
in food, water and air and by preventing their access to the food inside
the container by sealing it hermetically.
In England, Thomas Saddington, who had picked up the general
principles of the method of Appert while travelling in France was the
first to descri~e the method of canning of foo~s in 1807. According to
Bitting, Peter· Durand (another Englishman) obtained in 1810 the first
British Patent on canning of foods in tin containers.
Canning of fruits on a commercial scale was introduced in the United
States of America in 1817 by William Unde1wood the founder of the
present William Underwood Company of Boston, Mass., who had learnt
the technique in London. The Civil War in America and later the Boer
War and the Great European War of 1914, with their enormous require-
ments .o f preserved foods, gave a great impetus to the canning industry.
The Second Wor1d War provided a further fillip and the canning industry
witnessed unprecedented development in both technique and scope. At
present, the variety and range of canned foods is enormous. Over 350
f> PRE:SilRVATlON Of FRU ITS AND VBG El'ABL ES

.
different k'mds~ of canned foods. nrc to be found nowadays. The total pn k
1.: ~c
. 1. producith" co untnes of the world , even ns far bnck ns 1935
of the maJ0 'O • . l' . . ~ ,
has been estimated at 6.5 nulhon to_rnes. Accorc in g to the ~unning Trnuc
Almanac 1954. in the U.S.A. a!one tn l ~5~. the tota l producti on of canned
fruit and vegetable products ot all categories was of.tho order of 7 million
tonne~ T lus has further increased tremendously
. tn recent year~ in the
.
U. S.A. as well as in other major producing countt 1es. Ncw\!r techn ique~
1
and newer )?roducts have been introduced.

PRINCIPLES OF FOOD PROCESSING

The fundamental principle of preserving foods by heat is known as
'Processing'. It consists basically in the application of heat in varying
degrees to the food in closed containers, for a sufficiently long time to
sterilize the co~tents before these are hermetically sealed. The method
of processing varies from food to food.
In the early days of canning, the 'open-bath' processing in boiling
water was the one commonly used. This was also the n1ethod adopted by
Appert. By this method, fruits which were naturally acidic, and more
acid vegetables like rhubarb and tomato, could be sati&factorily pre-
served as most of the spoilage organisms present in them were easily
destroyed at the temperatu1e of boiling water. Non-acid vegetables how-
ever, required processing at higher temperature to get rid of the more
resistant organisms present in them. In earlier times, prolonged pro-
ce~sing in boiling water for 5 to 6 hours, or heating the canned food for
short periods on 3 to 4 successive days to sterilize the product completely,
was adopted in the case of non-acid vegetables. This was, however,
cumbersome. In 1861, Issac Winslow used calcium chloride in the open-
bath to raise the temperature as high as 121°C. Calcium chloride, how-
ever, discoloured the tin can and made it look unattractive. In 1873, a
pressure cooker or retort, in which steam is let into a closed vessel under
pressure, was invented by A. L. Shriver, a canner of Baltimore. This was
a big step forward in the technique. Several improvements have since
been introduced in this highly useful equipment. Pressure cookers arc
now available in various designs and capacities to suit different require-
ments. Some of them can operate continuously for processing foods under
pressure.
The original sample 'open-bath' method also has been improved
greatly. The continuous-type open cooker is a notable addition. ln earlier
days the cooker consisted of a long iron or wooden tank sometimes as
long as 30 metres containing boiling water through which sealed cans
were mo~ed in crates ~uspended from a moving over-head conveyor.
These bemg bulky and inconvenient, continuous agitating sterilizers were
 J>RINCIPLES OF PRESERVATION 7
introduced . In these, the sealed cans were conveyed on a continuous belt
passing through a dosed steam chamber with a device to constantly roll
and agitate the cans. Bitting estimates that in these sterilizers the pro-
cessing time is reduced by as much as 75 per cent. These sterilizers are
in common use in many of the modem canneries. A recent innovation is
the introductio n of the spin-pasteu rizer in which the cans rotate on their
own axis during pasteurizat ion as well as subsequent cooling. This type
of pasteurizer , first developed in Australia, has been found highly useful
in the canning of pulpy and viscous materials such as passion fruit pulp,
which have a mild flavour easily affected by strong · heating for even short
periods. The rock-and-ro ll type of pasteurizat ion in an open cooker has
been found satisfactory in the case of canned orange segments, which
have a delicate flavour easily adversely effected by longer heating ai in
convention al stationary processing technique. Hydrostatic cooker where
the can travels through a column of water is a more recent introductio n
to processing techniques.
In the case of spin-proces sing of even viscous materials, the time can
be very short. For instarice spin-processing is possible for fruit pulp like
mango pulp, , tomato paste, fruit purees, concentrate s, syrups, canned
fruits, juices and ready-to-serve beverages (Pruthi, 1962). It has also been
reported (Pruthi, 1963) that in case of passion fruit juice employing a
rotation of 150 rpm, atmospheri c steam at 96°C to 97°C and the
time of spin heating for safe canning can be as low as one minute, the
time of spin-coolin g being l j minutes, at 150 rpm under sprays of water
at the rate of 45 litres per minute.
There is much scope for extending this type of processing to a variety
of other heat-sensiti ve viscous products like custard apple pulp, mango
pulp etc.