HOME REFRIGERATION AND FOOD PRESERVATION 



By John E. W. McConnell, Research Assistant, William B. Esselen, Jr. 



Assistant Research Professor, and Carl R. Fellers, Professor, 



Department of Horticultural Manufactures 



INTRODUCTION 



The use of refrigeration for the preservation of foods has been known and 

 practiced by man since the beginning of history. Food was often stored in caves, 

 in containers immersed in flowing water, or in deep wells, where 'the temperature 

 was 50°-60°F. even in warm weather. In hot climates water was kept com- 

 paratively cool by storing it in porpus jars so that the evaporation of the water 

 on the sides of the vessel cooled the contents. 



More recently man learned to store ice, cut in the winter, for use throughout 

 the summer months. The first ice box in America was set up in 1802, according 

 to Moyer and Fittz (1932). However, only in very recent times has mechanical 

 refrigeration been introduced with its accurate control over the storage tem- 

 perature. 



The importance of proper refrigeration can be appreciated when it is known 

 that in 1929 an estimated 4 percent of the income of the average American home 

 was wasted because of food spoilage which might have been prevented by proper 

 refrigeration (Frigidaire Corp., 1929). 



According to this same publication, the first mechanical ice-making machine 

 was invented by Dr. William CuUen in England in 1775; while the forerunner 

 of the modern mechanical refrigerator was invented in 1834 bj' Jacob Perkins, 

 a Massachusetts engineer, who used ether as the refrigerant. The first commer- 

 cial use of the invention was in 1855, when it was used to freeze ice, which in 

 turn was used to refrigerate food. The automatic mechanical household re- 

 frigerator was first introduced about 1910. Since 1920 the adoption of these 

 devices in homes has been so rapid that today there are over ten million units 

 in use in the United States. 



Most research in refrigeration has been done to safeguard the quality of foods 

 during transportation, manufacture, commercial storage, or distribution. The 

 major part of this work has been in the frozen food field where the holding tem- 

 perature is around 0°F., and in cold storage where storage is for long periods of 

 time. However, very little research has been conducted on the storage of foods 

 in domestic refrigeratiors whch operate at a temperature of approximatejy 40°F. 

 It would seem that this phase is of equal importance, as ordinarily much of our 

 food is not used immediately after purchasing, but is stored until needed or as 

 left-overs. 



This investigation was carried out in an attempt to gather information on the 

 effects of refrigeration on the nutritive value and keeping quality of various 

 foods under normal household conditions. The effect of different relative humidi- 

 ties on left-over foods and odor and taste, transfer in the ordinary household 

 refrigerator were also studied. 



