Introduction
Food has the ability to bring people from all walks of life together. There is a need for people to understand how to properly preserve food. This knowledge of food preservation will ensure that what we consume remains edible for as long as possible and will be digested properly by our stomachs. As a person who adores food, I want to bring the ideas and techniques of food preservation and storage into the Chemistry classroom. Food preservation is necessary to ensure the quality and longevity of our food. Techniques vary from early methods of salting, pickling, and dehydration to more recent techniques of pasteurization, food additives, and freeze-drying. The Chemistry of these methods can be explored in the high school classroom setting through labs, demonstrations, and projects. My students constantly ask to do food labs and their mouths salivate when I bring cooking analogies into our discussions on reactions and stoichiometry. Introducing the concept of food preservation to my students will allow me to instill the importance of caring for our food after it has been prepared to avoid being wasteful. My students are really great when it comes to consuming leftovers; however, they may not know the proper storage of their leftovers to ensure their food is still edible after a certain amount of time. Knowing how to preserve food is not only useful, but also economical.
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