“DEHYDRATION”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1943, Page 4

“DEHYDRATION”

A CHALLENGED WORD. When the word “dehydration” was first used by the Ministry of Food it had to defend itself against those who did not admire the new flower of speech, and asked “Why not ‘drying’?” The defence was that dehydration was a process which it would be misleading to describe as drying. On this the scientifically uninitiated suspended judgment. It now appears from a statement made by Mr Claud R. Wickard, the United States Director of Food, that the criticism was made on good grounds. Mr Wickard has described the dehydration of meat, and this is how it is done, in the United States at any rate. Strips of meat are “fed” to two metal wheels resembling millstones, revolving in different directions and heated to a temperature of 237 degrees Fahrenheit. Scrapers take the meat off after each revolution and deposit it in trays, Which are placed in cabihets heated to 160 degrees until only 3 per cent of the original moisture i remains. After this treatment the meat is said to look like “rust-coloured, powder.” Milk and eggs are treated in a slightly different way. They are forced in the form of a fine spray into a tank swirling with hot air, and the spray falls in tiny dry particles to the bottom of the tank. The only thing in these processes which is not simple drying is pulverisation, and that is no more indicated by “dehydration” than by the simpler word.—“ Manchester Guardian.”