PRESERVING FOOD 
7i 
killing any bacteria or other germs which might be 
in the vegetable or animal tissues. The cans are sealed 
while hot. 
In the household similar processes are carried on. 
To insure success, everything which touches the food 
should be sterilized—the jar and its cover, spoons, 
ladles or funnel. Hands and towels should not touch 
the edges of the mouth of the jar nor the inside of the 
cover, for they may carry dust enough to reinfect the 
fruit. 
When the canned food ferments or spoils it means 
that in some way it was not thoroughly sterilized or 
that dust-plants gained access to it afterward. Wherq 
sugar is used it should, of course, be put in before the 
sterilization, not afterward, unless it is made into a 
syrup and sterilized by boiling. If the housewife re¬ 
members that everything is dusty; that dust means 
dust-plants; that dust-plants mean the germs of fer¬ 
mentation and putrefaction, or “spoiling;” that noth¬ 
ing short of sterilization will insure indefinite “keep¬ 
ing,” she will know with what she is dealing and may 
act intelligently. 
If all dust could be removed from the air, the latter 
might have free access to her cans and no souring 
would follow. They might dry up, but they would not 
“spoil.” If the jar of food be completely sterilized, 
it can be stored anywhere in light or dark, warm or 
cold places; no fermentation occurs. But the chances 
of partial sterilization—a misnomer, of course, for such 
“Spoiling” 
