Food preservation principles

Time control plays an important role in maintaining food's freshness, nutritional value, sensory quality, and safety as microorganisms mutiply exponentially over time and cause spoilage once they reach certain threshhold levels. Extended exposure to certain environmental conditions can have the same effect and needs to be controlled.

On the other hand, certain foods require extended time for curing, proper gluten or ferment development, and may spoil or fail to properly develop if the process is cut off too quickly.

Controlling the time of the processing process  ensures the balance between freshness, nutritional value, sensory quality, and safety. A