sponsored links

Does Light Make Food Spoil Faster?

November 8th, 2011

How Light Affects Food

sunlight

Light affects the nutritional and chemical content of food through photodegradation. This is a chemical process that involves the alteration of the food’s temperature, nutrients and color due to the radiant energy that the light produces.

Kinds of Light
There are three forms of light that affect the amount of time that food spoils. These are natural sunlight, fluorescent light and incandescent light. All these three can come from windows, overhead bulbs, skylights and display cases.

Movement of Light
The presence of light can move through the food in different ways. One way is by being reflected off from the packaging of the food. Second is by distributing itself throughout the food for absorption. And third is by being absorbed in the packaging.

Effect of Light
The effect of light on food may happen in different levels. The impact depends on certain characteristics of light such as its strength, distance from the source, amount of exposure, properties of the packaging, oxygen content of food and temperature of food. Oftentimes, light saturates only the external region of the food which only affects that area. But, food that are filled with oxygen or appear transparent may be permeated by light internally.

Chemical Transformation
Chemical changes in food that is induced by light happen because of the nutrient it contains. Light can change a food’s color, flavor and nutrients. Light impacts various foods in several ways and greatly depends on the type of food and light. Fats, vitamins, pigments and amino acids are affected by light.

Prevention
To minimize the effect of light on food, it is best to store food in dry, cool and dark places. Pantries and fridge should stay dark unless there is a need to use light. Keeping light away from food maintains its normal temperature so that properties that cause flooding do not easily affect it.

Incoming search terms:

Related posts:

  1. What is the Best Way to Organize my Food Pantry? Easy Common Sense Tips in Organizing and Arranging Your Pantry A pantry with complete contents is helpful in providing you with the right choices when cooking. But, more than just...
  2. Does Protein Content Change When I Cook Food? Does Cooking Affect the Protein Content of Foods? The amount of nutrients our food contains is directly related to our health condition. Because of this, it is important to know...
  3. Grilling Tips for Great Food Three Things to Consider to Effectively Grill Food Grilling is a great and fun activity anytime during the year but most especially in the summer. For this process, gas or...
  4. Keeping Healthy Items in your Food Pantry Healthy Choices for Your Pantry Your pantry is your back-up plan during emergency situations and on those days that you don’t feel like going to the store. Thus, you always...
  5. Long Term Food Storage tips for Emergencies and Storm Season Effectively Keeping Food for Long Term Storage Storing food in order for them to stay fresh and edible for a long time is an important skill that many people unfortunately...

Categories: General Tips

Tags: , , Leave a comment

Leave a comment

Feed

http://thefoodwiz.com / Does Light Make Food Spoil Faster?