3 VENTAJAS DEL AHUMADO | CARNES ROJAS Y BLANCAS

The conventional smoking technique has changed, new technologies in this field hold great promise in the food industry. Make your food acquire those characteristics you want. Although, today in the food industry there are innumerable investigations regarding food in order to improve its attributes such as taste, color, texture, smell and others, all this to comply with the demands of today's consumer in a day that is becoming more and more demanding. Likewise, these investigations aim to improve the quality and safety of foods, which allows them to be more stable when stored at room temperature, in refrigeration or freezing. For foods to preserve their characteristics and nutritional properties, human beings have carried out countless methods and techniques for this purpose, without a doubt one of the best known is smoking, which has been widely used in previous decades, mainly to preserve meat from different animals as well as fish. Although the use of this technique has decreased, it is still being used especially in peasant and indigenous communities where there are no refrigerators or refrigerators due to lack of energy, for example. The smoking technique is characterized by subjecting the food to the action of smoke where as much water as possible is reduced, for this non-resinous wood or sawdust is used in order to avoid the appearance of undesirable flavors in the finished product. It should be noted that for it to be an ideal smoke, the combustion must be incomplete, that is, without the presence of a flame. Another important point is the use of woods with flavoring properties such as walnut, apple, oak and cherry, it is also convenient to highlight these properties so that you can add different aromatic plants such as: • Eucalyptus leaves. • Rosemary. • Rude. • Dried oregano sticks. • Eucalyptus peel. • Eucalyptus seeds. • Kitchen laurel. In order for the smoked food to obtain the ideal characteristics, it is necessary to previously accompany it with a good salting, all of this to also reduce the water content and the microbial activity (reduction of the growth of microorganisms), the salting technique can be dry (directly on the food) or in saline solution (brine), as it is also possible to add different aromatic herbs to enhance flavors. The 3 main advantages of smoking are: 1. Conservation Since it prolongs the shelf life, that is, it allows that there is no early decomposition of food. 2. The enhancement of flavors This is partly due to the fact that the chemical substances present in the smoke are impregnated in the meat, remember that the smoke is produced thanks to the incomplete combustion of woods that have flavoring properties, so when tasting these foods it is very pleasant for our palate. 3. Bacteriostatic and antioxidant effect Smoke has various components such as alcohols and ketones that are bacteriostatic and bactericidal. In addition, there are also phenols that are responsible for giving the color and characteristic shine to smoked products. Delays the oxidative action of lipids, influencing the stability of the product during storage at room temperature. Currently, within the food industry there are advanced technologies such as adding liquid smoke (liquid smoke is a combination of wood smoke with a smoky flavor and water), as well as smoked salt (this is used as a condiment , consisting of American oak smoke and sea salt). In this channel you will learn about the wonderful world of food engineering, if you came here it is because you want to know about it. Here you will find information related to Engineering, the food chain and interesting content about science and research.