PRESERVATION BY DRYING 163 



the mass can be reduced to a powder. Powdered meat, 

 however, is an article of commerce not very widely used. 



Drying is adopted extensively for a variety of other 

 animal foods. It is much used in preserving fish, some- 

 times without salting, sometimes with an abundance of salt. 

 The heat of the sun, artificial heat, and smoking are all 

 employed. Mussels and other shellfish are sometimes pre- 

 served by drying. 



One of the most recent and most useful applications of 

 drying is in evaporating milk. Skim milk is easily dried 

 into a powder and will keep indefinitely without decaying, 

 souring, or molding. It is one of the cheapest as well as 

 most nutritious of foods. It does not quite take the place 

 of fresh milk, for when dissolved in water most dried milks 

 have a taste unlike milk. For baking, it is as good as fresh 

 milk, and is most excellent for camping parties. Whole 

 milk, when dried, does not keep so well, since the fat in it 

 becomes rancid in time. 



The drying of eggs to a powder form has been success- 

 fully accomplished, and in this form they may be used for 

 all cooking purposes. 



In the drying of flesh, milk, etc. it must be remembered 

 that the process simply checks the growth of bacteria but 

 does not necessarily kill them. Hence, if the milk con- 

 tained any disease germs at the time of drying, the process 

 itself would not remove the danger of eating it. Meat 

 from diseased animals cannot, therefore, be rendered fit 

 to eat by drying. Even the parasitic worm, Trichina, can 

 withstand the smoking in the curing of ham. Unless the 

 temperature is raised quite high during the drying, the 

 process does not, therefore, remove dangers attending 



