MULTUM IN PACKAGES: Dehydration Has Arrived

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 255, 12 May 1944, Page 20

MULTUM IN PACKAGES:

Dehydration Has Arrived

lad about food dehydration have appeared so_ frequently through the past year that the more slow-witted among us are realising that it is an established fact just as the original enthusiasts are wondering if after all it is much use. A.M.R., set to work by "The Listener" ‘to discover where dehydration really stands to-day, makes this report: N acquaintance of mine recently returned from mountaineering on a packet of dehydrated meat (product of Feilding). "Why," said he, "it was just pemmican, very good pemmican, almost precisely the stuff Lincoln Ellsworth made for explorers." Pemmican, as every schoolboy knows but most adults have forgotten, was the pounded meat dried by the Eskimos and Red Indians to use in winter and upon long ‘journeys. Occasionally, farmers in the U.S.A. dig up blocks of it, anywhere up to two feet square, that were cached unknown decades or centuries ago, and find them still not completely inedible. Housewives, of course, have sun-dried various fruits since housekeeping began. Fishermen have kippered fish. And a Highlander’s sporran, usually translated purse, more often carried oatmeal and a slab of smokecured flesh than the King’s currency. But successful dehydration on the grand, scientific, mechanical scale is something brand-new with this war. Space saving is its essential reason. As Mr. Bankes Amery put it during his present tour: "We estimated in Britain that we were importing about three million tons of water into the country every year. So, since we already had plenty, we decided to cut water out as far as possible and use the space it took on ships for solid food." But now that the war has passed into an attack phase, dehydration’s frontline function of providing lightweight provender where fresh food would decay and cans become poisonous with rust, is equally important. With so many refrigerated ships lining the Atlantic floor and most of the world’s tin in Japanese hands, the ability of dried food to travel in cardboard battledress alsoy means much, And just as "telescoping" carcases (i.e., boning and moulding them) freed 41 million cubic feet of shipping space to carry something else to Britain last year, so dehydration cuts out cores, skins, tops, and other waste weight before shipment, instead of on the kitchen bench at the end of the journey. Moreover, it puts food into a form where it can be further condensed by

compression. And this block food in turn needs only a paper wrapper in place of the previous tin or carton. All of which, expressed as a total, means that Britain got the value last year of three-quarters of a million tons of food. without any crane or wharfee having ever to lift it off or into any ship. Eating the Stuff That is how dehydration appears to High International Policy. But what do Sam Soldier and Mrs. English, who, after all, eat the stuff, think of it? A good deal of the last war’s dried food looked, and tasted, like bootblack. Some of it-and evaporated rations were used as far back as the American Civil War of 1861-65-was recognisable as food to both eye and palate, but could never have slunk past a modern nutritionist. However, in present-day processing expert investigation gives the Vitamin C losses as between 50 per cent for turnips and 34 per cent for potatoes — which means that.the more stable bulk constituents stand up to treatment a great deal better than this. Laboratory tests, moreover, show that dried’ foods,, even when packed only in cardboard, deteriorate hardly at all for the first nine months when stored in an ordinary cool place, and last up to 18 months if kept around 30 degrees F. As for palatability, it is on record that many folk have eaten dehydrated food without knowing what it was, and have noticed nothing unusual. One R.A.F. mess left cooked fresh cabbage on their plates but wolfed all the dehydrated cabbage. Such tests are being all the while carried out by the various services of the United Nations. Results vary. Partly they depend on the factory that processed the food, anda few factories have accordingly had to shut down or alter their methods. But mainly they seem to depend on the cook. Dehydrated foods can no more be prepared

in the same way as (say) canned goods than frozen meat will respond to the same kitchen treatment as fresh meat. Statistics, however, give proof. For they show that all governments are pushing ahead with their dehydration projects. We shall have four plants here in New Zealand this year, instead of one last year, and none the year before. Britain has 30. Australia has 32. Canada dehydrated four times as much in 1944 as 1942. While U.S.A.’s 20 factories of May, 1942 were 188 by May, 1943, and are scheduled to double again by next month. Every twelfth pint of milk and every third egg are already being dehydrated in America. And 18,000,000,000 pounds of their vegetable crop is earmarked for the Tunnel. Obviously, Dehydration Has Arrived. Handy on Hills But will all these factories be needed when peace returns? It is most uniikely. Dehydrated vegetables and fruit, even when dry, look good-carrots bright red-orange, spinach rich green, beets deep red. When "reconstituted" and cooked, they resemble their fresh counterparts almost completely. But we would normally no more confuse their

SUPER-COMPRESSION (for men with hammers) "Telescoping" reduces a carcass occupying 6.3 c.ft. to 3.5 c.ft. Dehydration reduces it to 1 c.ft. Compression to 3/5 c.ft. The 280Ib. potatoes below normally compress into 1 kerosene tin. Compression has been carried much further, e.g., meat for a family meal into a matchbox. But this degree of compression damages the nutriment, the temper, and the kitchen tools.

tastes with produce straight from the garden or off the trees than we do that out of. cans. Nevertheless, just as we find canned goods handy to hold against emergencies and quick to prepare, so we are likely to use dehydrated onesespecially at times when much-travelled, shop-soiled, merely so-called "fresh" vegetables or out-of-season fruits are the only alternatives. They are even handier than cans to carry. Hilltop housewives in Wellington and Dunedin need take only a shopping bag to town to return with several days’ dinner. Arrived home, they will find the washing, peeling and slicing all already done. But-a warning to Frying-pan Fannynot all foods are as quick to "rehydrate" as that miraculous British powder which turns into fluffy mashed potatoes at a mere minute’s boiling. Intriguing Possibilities With demand certain to slackenthough certainly not cease-once the war is over and its worst ravages of starvation are repaired, it is not surprising that the British Government has treated dehydration machinery, as war plant, to be temporarily installed in private factories but paid for by the Government. In enterprising America, on the other hand, the 400-odd factories are all privately owned. New Zealand followed the British plan with its first plant, a local-and highly successfuldesign by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. But the three just about to open at Pukekohe, Riccarton and Motueka are both Stateoperated and State-owned. The reason given for this opens up intriguing possibilities. Vagaries of weather make annual crops vary so much that market gardeners would be ruined by their plentiful seasons if they were not able to balance the losses they then make by high prices in the poor seasons. If, however, processing plants were available to take production off the market when it was excessive, and store it for use into the lean ~ months; and if these plants were communityowned so that they could, if need be, put this community service ahead of direct profit-making, then prices need never fall unremuneratively to the growers nor rise excessively to the public. If community-controlled dehydration’ can indeed become such a flywheel to Supply and Demand among perishable foods, its peacetime role will far exceed in value even its present services, (The main diagram on this page is by comme of the Internal Marketing Department).

HOW FOOD RECONSTITUTES (for Alice Smith) One pound of cooked food can be obtained from any of the following:Carrots ae Mires YS Potatoes... a Beets Siig ww. 24202. Onions meee aw. 202. Cabbage _...... w. 2Y2-40z. Spinach pion we 2¥-40z. Food value is, however, higher. E.g., that of the above cabbage equals 144-114lb. fresh cooked; that of the above potato equals 144lb. fresh cooked. To serve four persons:-Three ounces potatoes, 20z. beet, carrots, onion or kumara. One ounce cabbage or spinach.

"Telescoped" Dehydrated Ib. Fresh aia: ‘ oked Helpings Beef 150 112 37 — are Cabbage 875 490 50 280 1400 Carrots 700 500 70 350 1500 Potato 280 210 50 140 560 Agt3