MacArthur became well known for her leadership of Canadian research into dehydration, which included fundamental research on methods for determining the inactivation of enzymes in plant tissues prior to dehydration.
She had a large dehydration tunnel built in Ottawa, Ontario in 1942, in which she conducted more than 2000 experiments during the last four years of World War II.[10]: 330–331 She is credited with identifying that vegetables needed blanching to inactivate enzymes before dehydration.[11] She worked jointly with scientists at Kentville, Nova Scotia, who provided her with the dehydrated vegetables for further analysis in Ottawa, Ontario.[11] This was an important activity during the war years as many fruits and vegetables had to be dehydrated and shipped to Europe for the war effort.[4] As a result of her work the appearance and nutritional value of commercial dehydrated cabbages, carrots, potatoes and turnips improved markedly. Her research on the suitability of different varieties of fruits and vegetables for freezing, which had been interrupted by the war efforts, was reactivated in 1944.[10]: 331 Before the end of the Second World War MacArthur also published a paper on the freezing of commercially packaged asparagus, corn and strawberries.[3][4]
In 1945 the Consumer Section, Market Service of Agriculture Canada published the first booklet on home freezing based on this research. By 1949, MacArthur also summarized her research into a booklet for use by the commercial food industry.[10]: 331 MacArthur assisted Malcolm Bancroft Davis, chief of Division of Horticulture for the Dominion Department of Agriculture until 1955, who conducted research on the preservation of fruits and vegetables by freezing and gas storage of apples.[4]
Honours and awards
In 1952, Mary MacArthur was the first woman to become a member of the Agricultural Institute of Canada.[3][4]
Death
Mary MacArthur died on April 26, 1959, as a consequence of rheumatic heart disease in Pugwash, Nova Scotia,[1] where she and her two sisters had refurbished a cottage.[12]
^ abMacArthur, Mary (April 1948). "The effect of method of freezing, type of pack and storage on asparagus tissue". Scientific Agriculture. 28: 166–174.