Long Life for Food

Somewhere between the farm and the home refrigerator, fresh fruits and vegetables in the U.S. are almost sure these days to get a scientific going over. Antiseptic washes, ultraviolet light, sulphur dust, gamma rays--the possibilities are almost endless, but the purpose is almost always the same: to stop decay caused by fungi and bacteria.

The trouble with all these treatments, says Food Biologist Karakian ("Kutty") Bedrosian, is that they fail to take account of the fact that the produce itself wants to die. "The problem today is not bacteria, but to control or inhibit the enzyme activity by which fresh food ripens and then becomes rotten." Satisfied that modern techniques of refrigeration and decontamination are more than equal to handling harmful bacteria, Kutty went to work to cure fresh food's tendency toward self-destruction.

The most promising method he could find was the "controlled atmosphere" system now in use among apple growers. Stored in sealed, refrigerated warehouses, apples begin to deteriorate, but in the process they use up oxygen. Within two or three weeks there is so much carbon dioxide in the air that the ripening process slows practically to a halt. Trouble is, the controlled atmosphere has to be carefully checked; too much CO2 can also harm the fruit. A second trouble is that once the warehouse is opened to remove a load, the whole process has to be started once more.

Bedrosian went to work on the problem along with some engineers at Whirlpool Corp., more familiarly concerned with manufacturing automatic washers and other home appliances. They built a small generator capable of spitting out just the right amounts of CO2 and oxygen to keep the air in a warehouse ideal for food preservation. With one of Kutty's Tectrol (Total Environmental Control) generators in operation, the storage room no longer has to be sealed. The food-preserving atmosphere is constantly replaced. As a result. Tectrol-treated apples can be kept fresh as long as a year. Apricots, which once could be kept no longer than ten days, now last for up to ten weeks. Sweet-cherry life can be lengthened from seven days to six weeks; pears that once spoiled after twelve weeks of refrigeration can now stand an extra month of storage.

Right from the start, Bedrosian was so pleased with Tectrol's promise that he wanted to manufacture it for use with home refrigerators. But Whirlpool salesmen said no--it should be used by commercial fruit and vegetable growers. The housewife, they argued, would never go for it. Kutty remains unconvinced. Soon, if he has his way, food in the home refrigerator will be competing for longevity with the navy bean, which is still edible after 20 years of dry, cool storage.

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