Compare the Effectiveness of Natural and Commercial Food Preservatives on Food Samples Preserved using Simple MBRT and Spectrophotometric Analysis (original) (raw)

The purpose of our paper is to demonstrate the effectiveness of food preservation, using natural and commercial food preservatives, such that it retains its original nutritional values, colour and texture. Food preservation is a method to maintain food quality at an expected level so that we can get the maximum benefits. The deterioration and spoilage of food quality occurs mainly due to physical, chemical, enzymatic and microbial reactions. The major types of microorganisms that cause food spoilage and eventually food borne illness are bacteria and fungi. There are two categories of food preservation- i. the modern preservation method includes high hydrostatic pressure, high ionizing radiation, etc. and ii. the conventional preservation method includes drying, pickling, chilling, freezing and pasteurization. In our project, we have used both natural and commercial preservatives. We took honey, vinegar and salt as natural preservative, sodium benzoate and sodium nitrate as commercial preservative. As sample food products, we used orange juice, eggs, meat, milk and curd. We made separate solutions of each food product for control, natural preservative and commercial preservative. We preserved the food samples with specific amount of the preservatives for a particular duration. Eventually, we tested the preserved food samples using Methylene Blue Reduction Test, Spectrophotometeric Analysis and Durham’s test tube to check the safer way of preserving food. Thus, the primary objective of our project is to impede deterioration of foods using preservatives (both natural as well as commercial) such that the shelf life of the food products increases and also the quality, appearance and taste is stabilized