Thanks to the new breathe of fresh air in the recent regular supply of few hours of power provided to major towns and cities in Nigeria which is seemingly better than what it had been about a decade ago. Asides these few weeks, Nigeria is notable for constant blackout or incessant power supply, so the need for housewives and our mothers to preserve their foodstuffs lies in the use of other alternatives to prevent these items from deteriorating.
How To Store Some Common Foods Without Refrigeration
In this short post, you will be learning how best to preserve some of our common food items without necessarily affecting the quality to an unacceptable level.
1. EGGS:
There has been a serious debate particularly between the Americans who believe eggs are to be refrigerated to prevent bacteria proliferation and the Britons who disagree and feel that eggs can be stored at room temperature long enough without leading to bacteria infestation.
As this argument continues, a research center took time to subject these claims to a test and found out that after a period, both storage forms of eggs were free from bacteria and safe to consume. In view of this, it is clear that you can keep your eggs at room temperature on the shelves of your kitchen particularly the Nigerian types that had been vaccinated against salmonella and other bacteria.
My simple advice is that without refrigeration, do not buy eggs you do not plan to consume within two weeks. Although, eggs stored at room temperature have been found to store longer than two weeks.
2. MEAT:
Staying at quite a distance to the market seems to make many households to imbibe the culture of storing meat as they can not dash out to the meat stores whenever they feel like to purchase fresh meat. So, they buy in bulk. While you cannot trust the electricity situation in Nigeria, the tested ways that can prevent meat spoilage are salting and drying.
As a young boy, my mum practices this method when we newly relocated to another environment. The salting inhibits the growth of microbes and pushes out more moisture while the drying eliminates the moisture which usually acts as a conducive environment for bacteria multiplication leading to spoilage.
The truth is, nothing tastes better than fresh food items. However, avoiding spoilage while still retaining some nutritive value is key. My advice is when you are ready to cook your meat, wash it well in water to remove or reduce the salt concentration. Usually, you do not need to add salt to the soups or stews.
3. VEGETABLES:
The way to follow in storing vegetables is quite broad and one needs to be extra careful. If you go to the grocery store and pick up any vegetable you find; then, you seem unserious in your quest in keeping vegetables as most of the vegetable displayed are either too ripe or have been infested. You have to be picky.
Also, particularly in the superstore where vegetables are sold, some of them have been refrigerated in the past. So, no form of other storage will help apart from refrigeration. It is advisable to choose your veggies with varying degrees of ripeness so that they can be kept at room temperature and last a week or two.
It should be noted that vegetables store differently. For leafy veggies, it is smarter to remove the coloured ones to avoid the spread of the colouration. Aerating them will also help in moisture loss and this method can keep them from a few days to a week.
Do not hesitate to share how you preserve your food items asides from refrigeration.
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