Ed Kee gave a great lecture about a wide variety of aspects of Delaware Agriculture. I liked that he provided the history of each topic he talked about. One of the main topics that stuck in my head was the section about canning. As a Food Science major, I’m familiar with the process at a commercial level. The most important part of canning we look at today is safety. The fact that they used to use lead in processing is just scary. That is so dangerous! Also, it’s so important to process the can for the correct amount of time at the correct temperature to ensure complete enzyme deactivation and destruction of microorganisms, particularly clostridium botulinum. We have come so far in our technology, and I’m very thankful that we don’t often have cans exploding on the shelves today.

In addition, I thought it was fascinating that Woodside Creamery is implementing a “robot milker” into their dairy farm. Woodside is a place I’ve grown up going to with my family. They supply the ice cream to the restaurants I’ve worked in. I had no idea the history of this great family farm. I’m excited to see how the transition of milking with this new technology goes. I would think that the cows may not take to this “robot” right away.