Have you ever kept food in a store for a long time only to come back meeting it spoiled and rotten? Have you ever considered what the probable causes could be? What better ways can you follow to ensure your food remains fresh? In the wake of the lockdown, a lot of us stockpiled on food products to last us for a long time, because there was no certainty as regards when it would end.

If we are being honest with ourselves, many of us during the lockdown may have experienced food decay; most likely because of how much the food was overstocked and how lackadaisical we must have been about preserving them. Losing food to decay or spoilage can be annoying, especially in recent times when it is pertinent to manage resources. We understand how annoying it can be to lose food to decay and in this article, we will be educating you on food decay causes, prevention means and advantages of using those means - this is to help you understand what is at play and to provide possible solutions on how to avoid or minimize food spoilage to a great extent.

Causes

Microorganisms

This is probably the leading cause of food decay. The annoying thing about them is they can be found anywhere - whether indoors or outdoors. These microorganisms include, bacteria, protozoa etc. They are particularly very small in size, making their activities seem almost undetectable until the damage has been done. A wide range of microorganisms survive better in hotter temperatures, though there are a select few that do thrive in cold temperatures too.

Enzymes

Enzymes play a key part in the development of food and are also largely responsible for the biochemical activities that take place in the body system. The reason why your fruits ripen is as a result of the enzymes reacting on them, and in extreme cases, if the reaction continues, long dark food decay or spoilage could be triggered too.

Air

The air in our surrounding plays a key part in a chemical process called oxidation. This process is one of the reasons that contributes to the change in nutrient value of a food product, colour, taste whenever air reacts on food.

Light

Extreme light exposure or absence of light entirely could fuel the activities of decay-causing factors. Remember, light plays a vital role in most chemical reactions and long dark food decay is one.

Rodents and Insects

What these creatures do particularly to food products to trigger food spoilage is to damage them, making them highly susceptible to be acted upon by other food decay-causing factors.

Temperature

As you may already know, the temperature of the environment food is stored goes a long way in determining whether it is susceptible to food decay or not. Higher temperatures are generally known to be bad for food storage because that's one condition that favors the activity of other food decay-causing factors like microbial activity.

Food decay is something that happens with the interplay of virtually all the factors discussed so far, not independent of each other - they all work hand in hand for one goal.

Ways to Avoid Food Decay In The Long Dark

Now that we have emphasized the factors that contribute to food decay, let's get into some of the practical solutions you could try out to avoid or minimise the occurrence of food decay.

Refrigeration

As we have already established, microorganisms mostly do not thrive under cold temperature and also all other decay-causing chemical reactions tend to be dormant at cold temperatures. So you are better off storing those food items in your freezer and you can rest assured they will last for a very long time.

Store Food away from Sunlight

When you keep food items in a place where they are in direct contact with the Sun, they are bound to decay eventually because sunlight is very essential for degradation, which is what happens in the case of food decay. So, for items that you can't particularly store in a freezer like yams, you could instead store in a cold, dry room, where they are least expected to get rotten in.

Routine fumigation

This is to rid your store of those insects and pests that could damage your food products. The lower the population of rodents in your store, the better for your food products.

Food processing

You could consider processing your food to powder form to guarantee a longer shelf life. This could be easily done with crayfish, beans etc; or probably can your food, this way, they are least likely to be affected. If you are someone that doesn't have a refrigerator, these options will be better suited for you because they offer you a much more assuring alternative of keeping your food for a long period of time.

Avoiding Long Dark Food Decay is a possibility, you just have to follow the right measures and with the help of this article, that is already well covered.