Volume 1

First report / Committee on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire.

  • Great Britain. Committee on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire.
Date:
1939
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report / Committee on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    80/382 (page 72)
    for there is no doubt that the losses due to faulty storing and the absence of proper methods of preservation are in many areas considerable and that much could be done by more effective methods to improve nutrition in those areas. It is of particular importance in those territories where there are seasonal shortages of food and the possibility that the staple crop may fail.* We hope that the survey we have suggested will also cover the various forms of preserving fish. 197. In a sense all forms of storage are only a second best. The ideal is that supplies of fresh food should always be avail- able in succession. The homestead garden is the perfect store for green vegetables, as is the orchard for fruit and the lake, pond or river for fish. These three classes of foods, green vege- table; soft fruits and fish, are much more perishable than seeds, root crops and the hard fruits, and moreover important food values are lost in proportion to the time which elapses between their collection and their consumption at the table. However, storage and preservation must normally be resorted to. Indeed, it is essential where there is an alternation of gluts and famines and where an all the year round succession of fresh foodstuffs does not occur. 198. Food can be preserved in a large number of ways: by physical methods, such as cooling, heating or drying; by chemi- cal methods such as salting, smoking, sugaring, souring, mixture with condiments, the addition of alcohol and other chemical substances; or by a combination of two or more of these methods. All treatments are really designed to prevent or slow down chemical changes in the substances preserved, to destroy or inhibit the action of contaminating organisms and, when these conditions have been reached, to maintain them. The process of drying is employed because the more water that is removed from a product the better it will keep. High tempera- tures sterilise the products by killing bacteria and fungi and their spores, and so prevent fermentation if contamination after cool- ing is avoided. Heat also destroys enzymes which would other- wise hydrolise the fats into fatty acids, whereby the product would become unpalatable. Salt is added because very few bacteria or fungi will multiply in high salt concentrates. The use of hot smoke, which partly dries and cooks the product, * In such territories a communal store may often be useful. Thus in parts of Uganda a levy is imposed on each producer in the community, and this is kept in a communal store. After the levies have accumulated during a period of anything up to four or five years, the producer on handing over his next levy is given in return an equivalent amount from the store containing the oldest grain or seeds. Not only does this communal store provide a reserve which can be utilised in times of famine, but it serves to increase the sense of sécurity, the thriftiness and the foresight of the members of the community. “4