Many of us dry, can and pickle food for preservation, but do you know the three principles of food preservation?

The 3 Principles of Food Preservation

1. Inactivate microorganisms
2. Inactivate enzymes
3. Prevent pests

The three principles are to inactivate or remove microorganisms, deactivate or inactivate enzymes, and prevent pests from ruining the food supply. Don’t worry; each principle is straightforward, simple to learn, and easy to implement.

Inactivate vs Deactivate

First, a quick note on the meaning of inactivate.

Most of us are probably more familiar with the term “deactivate, however, the word “inactivate” is the most commonly used term for biological systems. The word, deactivate is the common word for technical or engineering systems.

What Are The Three Basic Principles of Food Preservation?

This section will cover each main idea and briefly how to achieve it. We’ll cover specifics in greater detail in the next section.

First Principle of Food Preservation

The first principle of food preservation is to inactivate or remove microorganisms.

The best ways to inactivate microorganisms is to:

• increase or decrease the temperature
• increase the sugar, salt, or acid content in a food
• remove air (oxygen)
• remove water or other moisture

Pickling, canning, freezing, and dehydrating foods are all ways to accomplish this first food preservation principle.

See canning and preserving your garden harvest.

Second Principle of Food Preservation

The second principle of food preservation is to inactivate enzymes.

• blanching
• freezing
• dehydrating

The best way to do this is to change their typical conditions by making the environment hot such as through blanching, or to make it cold such as through freezing. Or you can change the moisture content, through dehydrating foods to extract moisture that can lead to decay.

See also, drying rosemary and other herbs

Third Principle of Food Preservation

The third principle of food preservation is to prevent pests from contaminating or destroying it.

Insects, rodents, and some scavenging mammals may want to sample your foods, so store it in secure, dry, airtight containers that cannot be chewed into or easily broken.

See also, kitchen pantry storage bins, for some of our favorite mouse-proof storage containers.

Principles of Food Preservation by Type

Food Preservation by Dehydration

Drying food removes the moisture content, meaning that microbial growth is limited or stopped altogether. This inhibited microbial growth preserves not only the nutritional value and “freshness” of the food, but it also preserves the flavor.

See also, how to dry chili peppers.

Principle of Food Preservation by Fermentation

Fermentation oxidizes carbohydrates, effectively stopping or entirely ceasing the decay progression of food.

In fermentation, basically, lactic acid bacteria eats the the sugars or carbohydrates in the food, which makes acid which preserves organic matter. This process significantly limits pathogenic microbiota and spoilage that can potentially occur.

Popular examples of the most common fermented foods includes homemade apple cider and apple cider vinegar and also homemade probiotics like sauerkraut.

Book on the Principles of Food Preservation

If the science of food preservation interests you, you might enjoy this textbook on the “Physical Principles of Food Preservation” by Marcus Karel and Daryl B. Lund.

This book on the principles of food preservation has everything you need to know, and dives deep into the proven efficacy and safety of packing, preserving, and storing techniques. It also covers the conditions, properties, and theoretical conditions of food preservation.

You can find more on the advantages and disadvantages of food preservation here.