DRIED FOOD BOOM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1942, Page 2

DRIED FOOD BOOM

SHIPPING ECONOMY

DEHYDRATION TO THE FORE

With one or two cargo carriers sunk every day, with tin so scarce that brewers have been ordered to bottle beer in glass, the business of dehydrating vegetables, fruits and eggs is booming, said Waldemar Kaempffoft in a recent issue of the New York Times.

Up to June 1, he went on, about 2,000,000 pounds of dried vegetables had been purchased under leaselend, with the army clamouring for several hundred times as much. On July 1 the Government announced that it was in the market for dehydrated meat.

Most food contains much water. Eggs and meat are three-fourths water. Some vegetables are 90 per cent water. Get rid of this water and we obviously reduce bulk and thus save shipping space and reduce the number of warships required for convoying. Eleven pounds of vegetables become one pound by drying. Three dozen shell eggs make one pound of dried eggs. About four pounds of raw lean meat can be reduced to one pound. A cargo of dehydrated fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk and meat contains as much nutriment as several cargoes of raw equivalents.

Dehydrating Process

To gain an idea of how the dehydrator does his work take carrots. Not more than an hour after they have been pulled they are topped, trimmed, washed, scraped, sliced and spread in wire trays. Steam is turned on for six minutes to blanch them. Then they go into the dehydrator to be subjected for six hours to a temperature of 150-180 degrees Fahrenheit. The yield from 198 pounds of carrots is seventeen pounds—enough to fill two five-gallon cans. A bit of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) is dropped into each can and the lid sealed on with shellac. The gas makes long storage possible. Canada packs all dehydrated vegetables in this way; the United States only carrots and cabbages so far.

SAVING CARGO SPACE

Lemons are also dried, then mixed with corn sugar to make a powder. Add water and you have something tvery much like the original juice. Twenty-five cases of oranges make one small case of concentrate. About 1,200,000 gallons of orange concentrates have thus far been shipped under the Lease-Lend Act to make about 9,600,000 gallons of orangeade. The vitamin C content is only, slightly reduced. No sugar is added 1 to the dried orange powder. Pharmaceutical houses in Great Britain pack the juice in six-ounce bottles and distribute it to food centres, where it is sold and watered.

More than 6,000,000 pounds of dehydrated soup have been bought for lease-lend, and over 500,000 pounds of dehydrated tomato flakes. Most of this stuff is dried by spraying cooked pulp on hot rotating drums. The dried product is peeled off like so much paper and crumpled into flakes which, when mixed with water, become soup. Fruits and ordinary vegetables are generally dried in tunnels.

Three Methods

Eggs are dried by the spray, tray and conveyor-belt method. In the first the eggs are sprayed under pressure into the upper part of a high chamber heated to 160-170 degrees Fahrenheit. The second method involves drying in metal trays with hot air. In the third method a thin film of egg travels on an endless belt through a warm chamber. Whatever method is followed the eggs are broken, strained and emulsified. The dried product is good not only for cake, doughnuts and pancake flour and noodles, but for scrambling and making omelets.

Butter is melted before it is dehydrated. The gas must be removed to prevent oxidation. This is accomplished by vacuum-drving in pans Properly dehydrated whole milk or butter need not be packed in an inert atmosphere—the usual practice. Add a little water and salt and this properly dried butter can be served at the table.

Meat, too, has been dehydrated, but not in the form of steaks and chops. There is some hope that this limitation will be overcome and that even whole sides of beef will be dehydrated. At present the meat is cut up and sometimes ground to hamburger consistency. Low-quality cuts will not do.

Bacteria Destroyed

Dehydration takes place between two heated drums spaced one-eighth of an inch apart. The meat remains in contact with the heated drum for somewhat less than a minute. The scrapings fall into trays and are then slipped into a cabinet dryer for two or three hours. By that time the water content is reduced to 5 per cent. All enzymes are inactivated and all bacteria killed. About 354 pounds of lean steer meat become eighty-eight pounds of dehydrate. Not much meat of this kind has been shipped abroad as yet. The product is palatable even if eaten "as is." Is this business of dehydration merely a stopgap? Nobody knows. During World War I 8.905,158 pounds of dried vegetables were shipped to the army overseas mostly potatoes and soup. Dehydration was not then a roaring success. When cooked in water the dried vegetables had an "off" flavour. The business slumped. Since then much has been learned about dehydration. Colour and flavour are now preserved. And so are most of the vitamins and minerals. The booming business will not collapse immediately after the yar, because starving Europe will have to be fed for several years.