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| Sunday, 29 May 2005 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Then 'n' Now From snow holes to deep freezers You can get ice-cream any season of the year now because people have invented ways to keep it from melting. Imagine a hot season without ice-cream! There is no problem in keeping food fresh in the hot weather today because there are refrigerators and deep freezers. In the ancient days they were not available, so how did they manage to keep stored food fresh? Ancient people knew that ice kept meat fresh for a long time because they often came upon dead animals that were buried in snow whose flesh had not turned rotten. Soon they picked on this idea to keep their food fresh too. However, as ice melts in the summer, people didn't know how to preserve their food until they discovered much later that snow could be made to last longer if they filled deep holes with snow. The ice lasted throughout the summer and whatever food buried inside too remained fresh. Necessity is the Mother of Invention. The need to make food last longer eventually led to the invention of the first ice-boxes known as underground snow holes! Two thousand years ago, the Romans built special underground holes such as the ones shown in the page, to keep meat and other food fresh. It was very much later, a little more than a century ago, that the first ice machines came into existence.Huge, noisy machines that made large blocks of ice and generated cold were invented but they couldn't be installed everywhere. Then, these machines were improved and they were being installed in various places. Today, machines that make ice chips are used in industry, and some types can produce very low temperatures. Ice machines are commonly used for maintaining low temperatures in fruit and vegetable warehouses, and in refrigerated cells where meat is stored. We all know what a fridge and freezer are like because we have either seen them at our own or other peoples' homes, or at supermarkets. But there are bigger freezers and refrigerators - some which are mobile too such as refrigerator lorries and deep-freeze container lorries that transport large quantities of food. Different kinds of meat and vegetables are kept at very low temperatures, so that they can be eaten even months after being prepared. You are bound to come across cooling machines of this kind at the supermarkets. Do you know that there are ships too that are equipped with huge ice machines, thanks to the ice industry? It is such inventions that have helped to keep fresh the fish caught at deep sea until it is brought back to land. The refrigerating plant for freezing and preserving fish is built in the hold of the ship. So, now you know the progress we humans have made in freezing and preserving food with the help of ice and cooling machines! Read more on this subject and learn how and where the various types of machines were invented, to make life easy for all of us. |
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