What is Frozen Food?

Information about Frozen Food

Frozen food is food preserved by the process of freezing. Freezing food is a common method of food preservation which slows both food decay and, by turning water to ice, makes it unavailable for bacterial growth and slows down most chemical reactions.

Process

Freezing only slows the deterioration of food and while it may stop the growth of micro-organisms, it does not necessarily kill them. Many enzyme reactions are only slowed by freezing. Therefore it is common to stop enzyme activity before freezing, either by blanching or by adding chemicals.

Foods may be preserved for several months by freezing. Long-term freezing requires a constant temperature of -18 °C (0 degrees Fahrenheit) or less. Some freezers cannot achieve such a low temperature. The time food can be kept in the freezer is reduced considerably if the temperature in a freezer fluctuates. Fluctuations could occur by a small gap in the freezer door or adding a large amount of unfrozen food.

Texture of frozen food

Freezing adversely affects the texture of many foods, and the texture of nearly all foods is damaged by thawing and re-freezing. Since water expands when it freezes, cell walls in food are often ruptured, resulting in food that is limp or pulpy when thawed. This is especially true of fruits and vegetables that have a high water content. Less damage is done to vegetables that are high in starch. Less damage is also done if the food is frozen quickly, so unfrozen food should be placed in the coldest areas, which are near the bottom of the freezer. Some additives, such as sugar or sorbitol, can hinder water's crystallization and preserve the food's cellular structure. Defects in the texture of thawed food can sometimes be obscured by cooking.

Some food is frozen specially to get a frozen texture. Ice cream is an example of a food which is intended for consumption while frozen.

Quick-freezing

American inventor Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956), who developed the quick-freezing process of food preservation in the early 20th century, is considered the father of the frozen-food industry.

The food industry uses a technique called flash freezing, an application of supercooling, to quickly freeze food items. In this case, water contained inside the food is subjected to temperatures well below its melting/freezing point (273 K or 0°C). This causes the water inside the foods to freeze very quickly.

Traditional and other use

Many Arctic communities would preserve food in holes or larders dug into the ice. There is a tradition in Scandinavia of preserving fish and especially herrings in this way.

Cold stores provide large-volume, long-term storage for strategic food stocks held in case of national emergency in many countries.

Seeds are stored in freezers at −18 °C or below in seedbanks. The seeds are stored as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere should be destroyed. The seeds stored may be those of food crops or rare species.

See also

freezing is the process whereby a liquid turns to a solid. The freezing point is the temperature at which this happens. Melting, the process of turning a solid to a liquid, is the opposite of freezing. For most substances, the melting and freezing points are the same temperature.
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Food preservation is the process of treating and handling food in such a way as to stop or greatly slow down spoilage to prevent foodborne illness while maintaining nutritional value, density, texture and flavor.
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Decomposition (or spoilage) refers to the reduction of the body of a formerly living organism into simpler forms of matter.

Plant decomposition

See also:  and

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Water is a common chemical substance that is essential to all known forms of life.[1] In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor.
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ICE may refer to:
  • Internal combustion engine, a fuel engine
  • In case of emergency, the emergency contact program created after the 7 July 2005 London Bombings
  • International Cometary Explorer, a former spacecraft
  • Integrated Collaboration Environment


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Bacteria

Phyla

Actinobacteria
Aquificae
Chlamydiae
Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi
Chloroflexi
Chrysiogenetes
Cyanobacteria
Deferribacteres
Deinococcus-Thermus
Dictyoglomi
Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria
Firmicutes
Fusobacteria
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chemical reaction is a process that results in the interconversion of chemical substances.[1] The substance or substances initially involved in a chemical reaction are called reactants.
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Enzymes are proteins that catalyze (i.e. accelerate) chemical reactions.[1] In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products.
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Blanching is a cooking term that describes a process of food preparation wherein the food substance, usually a vegetable or fruit, is plunged into boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocked)
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Celsius is, or relates to, the Celsius temperature scale (previously known as the centigrade scale). The degree Celsius (symbol: °C) can refer to a specific temperature on the Celsius scale
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refrigerator (often called a "fridge" for short) is a cooling appliance comprising a thermally insulated compartment and a mechanism to transfer heat from it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient.
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Thaw may refer to:
  • For ice and snow to melt: often used of the weather.
  • Gomułka thaw
  • Khrushchev Thaw, period in Soviet history
  • Thaw (album), studio album by Foetus Interruptus
  • "The Thaw" (Voyager

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cell wall is a fairly rigid layer surrounding a cell, located external to the cell membrane, which provides the cell with structural support, protection, and acts as a filtering mechanism. The cell wall also prevents over-expansion when water enters the cell.
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fruit has different meanings depending on context. In botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary—together with seeds—of a flowering plant. In many species, the fruit incorporates the ripened ovary and surrounding tissues.
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Vegetable is a term which generally refers to an edible part of a plant. The definition is traditional rather than scientific and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, whole or in part, are normally considered vegetables.
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Starch (CAS# 9005-25-8, chemical formula (C6H10O5)n,[1]) is a mixture of amylose and amylopectin (usually in 20:80 or 30:70 ratios).
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Sugars, brown
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 0 kcal   0 kJ

Carbohydrates     97.33 g
- Sugars  96.21 g
- Dietary fiber  0 g  
Fat 0 g
Protein 0 g
Water 1.77 g
Thiamin (Vit. B1)  0.
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Sorbitol, also known as glucitol, is a sugar alcohol the body metabolises slowly. It is obtained by reduction of glucose changing the aldehyde group to an additional hydroxyl group hence the name sugar alcohol.
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Crystallization is the (natural or artificial) process of formation of solid crystals from a uniform solution. Crystallization is also a chemical solid-liquid separation technique, in which mass transfer of a solute from the liquid solution to a pure solid crystalline phase occurs.
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Cooking is the act of preparing food for eating by the application of heat. It encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor or digestibility of food.
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Ice cream or ice-cream (originally iced cream) is a frozen dessert made from dairy products, such as cream (or substituted ingredients), combined with flavorings and sweeteners, such as sugar.
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Clarence Birdseye (December 9, 1886 - October 7, 1956) was an American inventor who is considered the founder of the modern frozen food industry.

Early life

Birdseye was born in Brooklyn in New York City.
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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1850s  1860s  1870s  - 1880s -  1890s  1900s  1910s
1883 1884 1885 - 1886 - 1887 1888 1889

:
Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s  1930s  1940s  - 1950s -  1960s  1970s  1980s
1953 1954 1955 - 1956 - 1957 1958 1959

Year 1956 (MCMLVI
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twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
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The food industry is the complex, global collective of diverse businesses that together supply much of the food energy consumed by the world population. Only subsistence farmers, those who survive on what they grow, can be considered outside of the scope of the modern food industry.
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Flash freezing refers to the application of supercooling in various kinds of industries whereby objects are quickly frozen by subjecting them to cryogenic temperatures.
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Supercooling is the process of chilling a liquid below its freezing point, without it becoming solid.

Description

A liquid below its freezing point will crystallize in the presence of a seed crystal or nucleus around which a crystal structure can form.
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The melting point of a crystalline solid is the temperature range at which it changes state from solid to liquid. Although the phrase would suggest a specific temperature and is commonly and incorrectly used as such in most textbooks and literature, most crystalline compounds
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Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. In the northern hemisphere, the Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean (which overlies the North Pole) and parts of Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Russia, the United
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