Dried FoodsCenturies ago, man discovered that removing moisture（51)food helped to preserve

Dried Foods

Centuries ago, man discovered that removing moisture(51)food helped to preserve it, and that the easiest way to do this was to expose the food to the sun and wind. In this(52)the North American Indians produce dried meat and make it into cakes, the Scandinavians make(53)fish and the Arabs make dried dates.

All foods contain(54), cabbage and other leaf vegetables contain as much as 93% water, potatoes and other root vegetables 80%, lean meat 75%, and fish anything from 80% to 60% depending(55)how fatty it is. If this water is(56), the activity of the bacteria which causes food to go bad is stopped.

Now day most foods are dried mechanically. The most common(57)of such drying is to put food in chambers. This is the usual method for drying such things(58)vegetables, minced meat, and fish.

Liquids such as milk, coffee, tea, soups and eggs may be dried(59)pouring them over a heated horizontal steel cylinder or by spraying them into a chamber through(60)a current of hot air passes. In the first(61),the dried material is scraped off the roller as a thin film which is then broken up into small pieces, though still relatively coarse flakes. In the second process it falls to the bottom of the chamber as a fine powder. Where(62)pieces of meat and vegetables are required, as in soup, the ingredients are dried separately and then mixed.

Dried foods take up less room and weigh less(63)the same food packed in can or frozen, and they are(64)to climbers, explorers and soldiers in battle, who have little storage space. They are also popular with housewives(65)it takes so little time to cook them. Usually it is just a matter of replacing the dried-out moisture with boiling water.

A．away

B．from

C．off

D．out