Question

Which of these can be used to preserve food stuff
A) Sugar and vinegar
B) Salt and sugar
C) Vinegar
D) All the above

Answer 1

Hint:Preservation of food is the process by which spoilage of food is prevented by the addition of certain agents. Spoilage of food is mostly caused by microorganisms such as bacteria and yeasts which causes a deterioration of not only taste but also their appearance.

Complete answer:
Preservation of food can be done by a variety of techniques. The first among them is curing, which is a form of dehydrating the food by smoking or salting. It also involves addition of antimicrobials that help in further preservation. Second is cooling that slows down the microbial metabolism preventing action of enzymes that can spoil food. Third is heating or boiling that kills most of the microbes present in a particular food sample. Fourth is sugaring, sugars tend to draw water from microbes thus killing them. Another technique is pickling where agents such as vinegar, alcohol and vegetable oils are added that kills microorganisms. These are few of the traditional techniques that can be used to preserve food. Nowadays industrial techniques such as pasteurization, vacuum packing, irradiation, and modified atmosphere have taken over the traditional techniques to preserve foods.

Hence the correct answer is option (D) All of the above.

Note: Preservation of foods should be done with utmost care keeping in mind the kinds of agents used. Chemicals which can be toxic when consumed must be avoided. Other factors to be kept in mind are the agents should not alter nutritional value, colour or texture of food.