eating second-rate meat just because they found such a deal they couldn’t miss. Remember that

buying good quality meat when the price is reasonable makes good sense only if you know how

to freeze properly.

Freezer burn

What is freezer burn? It is a combination of oxidation and dehydration caused by either

poor packaging material or poor wrapping technique. Meat that becomes even partially

unwrapped in the freezer is exposed to oxygen and also loses moisture that goes from ice phase

directly into vapor (a process called sublimation). The desiccated, oxidized dark meat turns light

and light meat turns dark. You can easily prevent freezer burn if you wrap carefully before

storing.

Other ways to preserve meat

Before refrigeration and freezing became available to us, people used other techniques to

store meat over longer periods:

curing

dehydration

fermentation

canning

Curing was a favorite way, probably because it gives meat the best flavor. Today we use

both wet and dry curing.

Dehydration is the simplest of all meat preservation technique. Humans have used it for

thousands of years, and in some parts of the world is still the major way of preserving meat and

fish. Either natural heat (the sun) or dehydrators remove most of the moisture from the meat. To

beat spoilage by bacteria, dehydration has to be fast and because meat dries from the outside in,

it must be cut into thin strips. If the pieces are too thick, the outside hardens and the inside

moisture can't escape. Trapped bacteria thrive in any remaining inside moisture and spoils the

meat.

After dehydration removes most of the moisture, the original structure of the meat

collapses, so dehydrated meat shrivels up like beef jerky. It retains only about 5 percent

moisture, not enough for microorganisms—they require about 18 percent. Although you can

replace the moisture by soaking the meat in hot water, you cannot restore the appealing look of

fresh meat—reconstituted meat is not appetizing but perfectly good in stew-like dishes and

soups.

The modern way to dehydrate is by freeze-drying in a vacuum. The processor first

freezes the meat to stop bacteria from growing, then reduces the moisture to a mere 2 percent by

sublimation (the moisture evaporates directly from ice into gas). The process accelerates in a

vacuum. In freeze-drying, the meat retains its original structure and color. The texture changes

since most of the moisture is gone, and the meat looks like a dry sponge. If you place freeze-

dried meat in hot water for a short period of time, it sucks up water, regains its texture and

structure, and looks and tastes much like fresh meat. Vacuum freeze-drying is an expensive

method that yields high-quality dried meat with minimal bacteria. The most common use for

meat preserved like this is in one-package back-packing meals.

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