It just occurred to me that I hadn’t posted anything new on here in well over three weeks. Quite frankly, I’ve been so busy prepping that I haven’t had time to write. But how many of you are so busy PLANNING to prep that you don’t actually get around to prepping?
In the past few weeks I’ve dehydrated about 40 lbs. of carrots, added about 10 lbs. of spices to my pantry stash and found out that blueberries can be rather tricky to dehydrate. (More on that in a future post.) I’ve also added a couple more cases of canned mackerel to my storage pantry and am about to place a large order (probably more than 50 lbs.) for dehydrated banana chips which I can order more cheaply than I can make them myself.
Are you planning to prep? Or are you actually prepping? What are you waiting for?
Showing posts with label food dehydration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food dehydration. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Don’t skimp on your food storage equipment — your life depends on it
I came across a thread in one survival-prep forum recently where someone posted the suggestion that instead of buying allegedly more-expensive oxygen absorbers, why not buy iron oxide hand warmers, they said, since the hand warmers were cheaper and readily available in sporting goods stores and, they said, had the same active ingredients as food-grade oxygen absorbers? Well, that’s all fine and good if the hand warmers are cheaper and if they’re food-grade, but is cheaper necessarily what you want when it comes to food storage?
I’ve tried probably eight or nine different brands of food dehydrators over the years, and the only one I’ve tried that I would recommend to other people (disclaimer: I haven’t tried an Excalibur) is the one manufactured by Nesco, which has an internal fan for air circulation and helps food dry in half the time compared to dehydrators without fans. I like the Nescos so much that I’ve bought a dozen of them over the past several years just so I’ll have plenty of extra food preparation tools if I need them. (Shameless plug: You can usually get a Nesco on eBay for around $30 (plus shipping) if you pick your auctions smartly.)
Now, I could buy a Ronco or other model without an internal fan that would in fact use less electricity during the drying process…but if it takes the dehydrator twice as long to adequately dry food, am I really saving any money? I think it’s more than worth a few extra pennies of electricity to have dehydrators with fans so that I know my food will dry quickly and uniformly…and in the end, I have the security of knowing that I have plenty of food if I need it. (If you’re so worried about a dehydrator with a fan using more electricity than a dehydrator without a fan, maybe you should unplug the appliance in your house that uses the most electricity — your refrigerator!)
Which brings me back to the point about getting what you pay for.
In 1996, I bought my very first car, a 1984 Toyota Corolla. (Yes, a Toyota. The brakes worked on this particular vehicle…but nothing else did.) The car had about 162,000 miles on it, and the dealer was asking only $850 for it. The only warranty it came with was for me not to let the door hit me on the way out of the so-called dealership. More than $1,000 and 1,300 miles later, the car wouldn’t budge out of my mom’s driveway. Well, that’s not quite true…I could drive it three or four miles before the engine would overheat and I’d have to put more (and more…and more…and more) water in the radiator after it cooled down…and watch the water go right through the radiator to the pavement because the bottom of the radiator was rusted out.
I’d spent close to $2,000 and now had nothing to show for it. I was not a happy camper. But at least I could catch a ride on good days and hope I didn’t have to walk very far the rest of the time.
Which brings me back to my first point.
It’s one thing to shell out a couple thousand bucks on a piece-o’-junk car and have the thing eventually stop running altogether and then chalk up the experience to a lesson learned the hard way. But it’s a whole different story when your life depends on something.
And you can’t live without food.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that hand warmers technically do have the same oxygen-absorbing properties as, well, oxygen absorbers. I haven’t been able to try to vacuum-seal a jar yet with hand warmers because (at least according to the sporting goods clerk at Wally World) they are a seasonal camping-accessory item and won’t be available until later in the year. But do I really want something to heat up my food items as they are undergoing vacuum-sealing, and risk denaturing the vitamin content of the food that my life could depend on if TSHTF? Or would you rather use tried-and-true methods and materials that have been proven time and time again to work, so you don’t have to worry?
I’m not telling you not to buy that 1984 Toyota. I’m just asking you if it will get you where you need to go when you need it to get you there. If you’re buying cheaper food storage tools that you can’t be sure will do what you need them to do — keep your food fresh and safe until you eat it — are you willing to risk your health and maybe your life just to save a few bucks?
I’ve tried probably eight or nine different brands of food dehydrators over the years, and the only one I’ve tried that I would recommend to other people (disclaimer: I haven’t tried an Excalibur) is the one manufactured by Nesco, which has an internal fan for air circulation and helps food dry in half the time compared to dehydrators without fans. I like the Nescos so much that I’ve bought a dozen of them over the past several years just so I’ll have plenty of extra food preparation tools if I need them. (Shameless plug: You can usually get a Nesco on eBay for around $30 (plus shipping) if you pick your auctions smartly.)
Now, I could buy a Ronco or other model without an internal fan that would in fact use less electricity during the drying process…but if it takes the dehydrator twice as long to adequately dry food, am I really saving any money? I think it’s more than worth a few extra pennies of electricity to have dehydrators with fans so that I know my food will dry quickly and uniformly…and in the end, I have the security of knowing that I have plenty of food if I need it. (If you’re so worried about a dehydrator with a fan using more electricity than a dehydrator without a fan, maybe you should unplug the appliance in your house that uses the most electricity — your refrigerator!)
Which brings me back to the point about getting what you pay for.
In 1996, I bought my very first car, a 1984 Toyota Corolla. (Yes, a Toyota. The brakes worked on this particular vehicle…but nothing else did.) The car had about 162,000 miles on it, and the dealer was asking only $850 for it. The only warranty it came with was for me not to let the door hit me on the way out of the so-called dealership. More than $1,000 and 1,300 miles later, the car wouldn’t budge out of my mom’s driveway. Well, that’s not quite true…I could drive it three or four miles before the engine would overheat and I’d have to put more (and more…and more…and more) water in the radiator after it cooled down…and watch the water go right through the radiator to the pavement because the bottom of the radiator was rusted out.
I’d spent close to $2,000 and now had nothing to show for it. I was not a happy camper. But at least I could catch a ride on good days and hope I didn’t have to walk very far the rest of the time.
Which brings me back to my first point.
It’s one thing to shell out a couple thousand bucks on a piece-o’-junk car and have the thing eventually stop running altogether and then chalk up the experience to a lesson learned the hard way. But it’s a whole different story when your life depends on something.
And you can’t live without food.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that hand warmers technically do have the same oxygen-absorbing properties as, well, oxygen absorbers. I haven’t been able to try to vacuum-seal a jar yet with hand warmers because (at least according to the sporting goods clerk at Wally World) they are a seasonal camping-accessory item and won’t be available until later in the year. But do I really want something to heat up my food items as they are undergoing vacuum-sealing, and risk denaturing the vitamin content of the food that my life could depend on if TSHTF? Or would you rather use tried-and-true methods and materials that have been proven time and time again to work, so you don’t have to worry?
I’m not telling you not to buy that 1984 Toyota. I’m just asking you if it will get you where you need to go when you need it to get you there. If you’re buying cheaper food storage tools that you can’t be sure will do what you need them to do — keep your food fresh and safe until you eat it — are you willing to risk your health and maybe your life just to save a few bucks?
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Don’t be a chicken — dehydrate one instead!
Protein is central to human survival–you can’t live without it. And one of the least-expensive forms of protein in the American diet is chicken. As I mentioned in a previous post, food dehydration is one of the simplest ways to prepare food for long-term storage, as dehydrating it, by definition, removes all the water, which greatly extends food’s storage life. So to help you in your food prep efforts, I thought I’d post a few videos showing how to dehydrate chicken.
Having said that, don’t get hung up on the idea that only certain types of meat or poultry are amenable to dehydration. ANY type of meat or poultry can be dehydrated (or possibly turned into its own form of jerky) if it’s thoroughly cooked, thoroughly dehydrated and then stored in a tightly sealed container in a cool, dark place for longest possible shelf life.
The three video links below (click on each of the photos and it will open a new window with the corresponding video on YouTube) will walk you through the process of dehydrating chicken, and by extension any other form of meat or poultry. I personally prefer chicken because it’s inexpensive, and if thoroughly cooked and dried it can be stored for years in a sealed, airtight container, as is the case with beef jerky and other such dried meats you see most commonly.
A couple caveats: In the second video, a couple slightly misleading comments didn’t get edited out of this final version of the video. First of all, ignore the comment about adding textured vegetable protein as a texture enhancer with your dehydrated meats or other items. TVP isn’t a nutritionally dense food and really won’t get you much mileage at all in your food storage. Second, a comment was made about problems in the dehydration process with the chicken becoming “too dry” — this is incorrect. Dehydrated food items cannot become “too dry” in the sense that “too much” water is removed. What should’ve been said with regard to the chicken is that, because chicken is actually a naturally greasy meat source, as the chicken is dehydrated, at least using this model of dehydrator without a built-in drip tray, there was a problem with grease buildup that was not realized until a couple batches of chicken had been dehydrated, and without a catch tray the grease buildup actually ruined the motor in one of these Nesco dehydrators. Don’t let this worry you! Lining the bottom of this particular model of dehydrator helped catch much of the grease buildup, although we later figured it’d be easier with chicken to dice it into very small pieces and put it on a broiler pan on the top rack inside the oven until it is thoroughly dry. About 200 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes should do the trick, although your own oven’s drying time may vary. The chicken should be almost brittle when it’s thoroughly dehydrated. Adjust your own oven temperature or dehydration time as needed, but just make sure the chicken is dry to ensure maximum storage life.
Having noted the problem with grease from the chicken, I am beginning to instead dehydrate canned mackerel and salmon as an alternative source of animal protein. Why canned fish?? Because it’s a relatively cheap source of protein, it doesn’t have nearly the problem with residual fat that chicken has during the dehydration process and because dehydration will extend the shelf life even more. And canned salmon and mackerel have less necessary prep time than fresh-from-the-market fish and are usually packed fresh anyway.
As a side note, some of you are probably wondering why I don’t just leave the salmon or mackerel in the can, since it has at least a three-year shelf life in the can anyway. Well, there are three considerations. First is the relative lack of shelf space I have available, and the fact that dehydrated items take up only a fraction of the volume of their pre-dehydrated state. (See my earlier thread about how much less space dehydrated food takes up–check out the before-and-after pictures of the spinach.) I can fit three to four times as much product into a given space after it’s dehydrated.
The second reason why I dehydrate canned fish instead of just leaving it in the can is because if, for whatever reason, I need to grab my bug-out bag and hit the road on very short notice, I can carry a lot more food and can just rehydrate it as needed. Carrying around a vacuum-sealed mylar pouch of dehydrated meat/fish and vegetables, plus water, is easier than carrying around an unopened can of mackerel, unopened can of vegetables and a can opener. Think of dehydrated meat/fish, vegetables, etc., the same way you’d think of trail mix–just grab the bag, grab a container of water, and go.
The third reason why I dehydrate canned fish instead of just leaving it in the can is something that might not be on your radar at the moment, but could be an issue if you have nosy, Dumpster-diving neighbors: operational security. Let me illustrate: Let’s say you’ve just gotten a huge new big-screen TV or some other expensive item that someone might want. If they find a box for such an item in your trash, they might target your house later for that item because, they figure, the packaging for the item probably means that you have that item in your house!
Now think back to the reason you have food storage: First, because you want to be able to feed your family if times get really tough, the economy totally tanks, you lose your job, etc. And obviously you won’t want people to know that you have a lot of extra food on hand just as you wouldn’t want them to know if you have a lot of money or other valuables in your house. By getting rid of the original packaging such as can that some of your food preps come in (this won’t apply in all cases, obviously, I’m just using the canned fish as an example), if things get bad enough that your nosy neighbors are foraging around in the trash for things to scrap, or even for food, by getting rid of cans and other things now, you’re going to eliminate any trace of evidence after the fecal matter hits the fan that your house is where all the food is.
Having said that, don’t get hung up on the idea that only certain types of meat or poultry are amenable to dehydration. ANY type of meat or poultry can be dehydrated (or possibly turned into its own form of jerky) if it’s thoroughly cooked, thoroughly dehydrated and then stored in a tightly sealed container in a cool, dark place for longest possible shelf life.
The three video links below (click on each of the photos and it will open a new window with the corresponding video on YouTube) will walk you through the process of dehydrating chicken, and by extension any other form of meat or poultry. I personally prefer chicken because it’s inexpensive, and if thoroughly cooked and dried it can be stored for years in a sealed, airtight container, as is the case with beef jerky and other such dried meats you see most commonly.
A couple caveats: In the second video, a couple slightly misleading comments didn’t get edited out of this final version of the video. First of all, ignore the comment about adding textured vegetable protein as a texture enhancer with your dehydrated meats or other items. TVP isn’t a nutritionally dense food and really won’t get you much mileage at all in your food storage. Second, a comment was made about problems in the dehydration process with the chicken becoming “too dry” — this is incorrect. Dehydrated food items cannot become “too dry” in the sense that “too much” water is removed. What should’ve been said with regard to the chicken is that, because chicken is actually a naturally greasy meat source, as the chicken is dehydrated, at least using this model of dehydrator without a built-in drip tray, there was a problem with grease buildup that was not realized until a couple batches of chicken had been dehydrated, and without a catch tray the grease buildup actually ruined the motor in one of these Nesco dehydrators. Don’t let this worry you! Lining the bottom of this particular model of dehydrator helped catch much of the grease buildup, although we later figured it’d be easier with chicken to dice it into very small pieces and put it on a broiler pan on the top rack inside the oven until it is thoroughly dry. About 200 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes should do the trick, although your own oven’s drying time may vary. The chicken should be almost brittle when it’s thoroughly dehydrated. Adjust your own oven temperature or dehydration time as needed, but just make sure the chicken is dry to ensure maximum storage life.
Having noted the problem with grease from the chicken, I am beginning to instead dehydrate canned mackerel and salmon as an alternative source of animal protein. Why canned fish?? Because it’s a relatively cheap source of protein, it doesn’t have nearly the problem with residual fat that chicken has during the dehydration process and because dehydration will extend the shelf life even more. And canned salmon and mackerel have less necessary prep time than fresh-from-the-market fish and are usually packed fresh anyway.
As a side note, some of you are probably wondering why I don’t just leave the salmon or mackerel in the can, since it has at least a three-year shelf life in the can anyway. Well, there are three considerations. First is the relative lack of shelf space I have available, and the fact that dehydrated items take up only a fraction of the volume of their pre-dehydrated state. (See my earlier thread about how much less space dehydrated food takes up–check out the before-and-after pictures of the spinach.) I can fit three to four times as much product into a given space after it’s dehydrated.
The second reason why I dehydrate canned fish instead of just leaving it in the can is because if, for whatever reason, I need to grab my bug-out bag and hit the road on very short notice, I can carry a lot more food and can just rehydrate it as needed. Carrying around a vacuum-sealed mylar pouch of dehydrated meat/fish and vegetables, plus water, is easier than carrying around an unopened can of mackerel, unopened can of vegetables and a can opener. Think of dehydrated meat/fish, vegetables, etc., the same way you’d think of trail mix–just grab the bag, grab a container of water, and go.
The third reason why I dehydrate canned fish instead of just leaving it in the can is something that might not be on your radar at the moment, but could be an issue if you have nosy, Dumpster-diving neighbors: operational security. Let me illustrate: Let’s say you’ve just gotten a huge new big-screen TV or some other expensive item that someone might want. If they find a box for such an item in your trash, they might target your house later for that item because, they figure, the packaging for the item probably means that you have that item in your house!
Now think back to the reason you have food storage: First, because you want to be able to feed your family if times get really tough, the economy totally tanks, you lose your job, etc. And obviously you won’t want people to know that you have a lot of extra food on hand just as you wouldn’t want them to know if you have a lot of money or other valuables in your house. By getting rid of the original packaging such as can that some of your food preps come in (this won’t apply in all cases, obviously, I’m just using the canned fish as an example), if things get bad enough that your nosy neighbors are foraging around in the trash for things to scrap, or even for food, by getting rid of cans and other things now, you’re going to eliminate any trace of evidence after the fecal matter hits the fan that your house is where all the food is.
Hungry yet?
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Thursday, March 4, 2010
Nine meals from anarchy, part 5: Cheap eats, coming right up!
As I said yesterday, in general it’s a lot cheaper to dehydrate and store your own food than to buy prepackaged dehydrated or freeze-dried foods. It takes a little more effort than just entering your credit card number on a website and waiting for the package to arrive, but it’s typically a lot cheaper. And putting together your own food storage from home-grown or store-bought items also allows you to know exactly what you’re buying and storing.
For the sake of full disclosure, however, I will admit that there are certain kinds of foods I prefer to order from certain companies because those particular foods can be a bit challenging to dehydrate. In particular, foods that are high in naturally-occurring sugar will, of course, get gooey and sticky when they are heated. I dehydrated a batch of apples a couple years ago that were darn near impossible to pry off of the dehydrator tray, a problem that didn’t get solved until I bought food-grade plastic mesh sheets to put on the trays first to keep high-sugar foods and other items from sticking to them. (More on those sheets in a moment.) And in calculating how much or how little end product I was ending up with for the time I invested, apples (which had to first be cored, diced and dipped in lemon juice to prevent browning) ended up being more labor-intensive than I wanted to deal with (your mileage may vary), so I decided to order a can of dehydrated apples from WaltonFeed.com and have been very happy with the quality and the price. I’m planning to order a case of banana chips and a case of tomato powder from them very soon as well. (Editor’s note 8-26-10: Since I first posted this thread back in March, I’ve found much better shipping prices — $5 for orders over $75 — at BulkFoods.com.)
Having said that, though, I’ve found that most other foods are much less problematic to dehydrate, so your options are pretty wide-open as to what you can make with relatively little effort. And one thing you want to aim for as you’re putting together your food storage is to make sure you’re getting the biggest nutritional bang for your buck. I promise I won’t “preach” too much on the merits of making and storing food that is “good for you,” but it just makes sense: Healthy eating is especially important in high-stress situations, and if you’re in a situation where you’re having to rely primarily on your food storage for a while, I’m guessing that the situation itself will be stressful. So let’s use my favorite vegetable to illustrate how easy it can be to dehydrate and store food for your long-term survival and health:
Now, I’m not suggesting that YOU should like spinach, I’m just saying that as far as vegetables go, besides being my favorite, spinach is also packed with vitamins and flavor. And it’s pretty darn easy to dehydrate. So let’s start with the dehydrator.
A few caveats before we begin: I’ve had several of my ideas criticized online by people who tell me I’m not using the “best” dehydrator or that I should buy only fresh vegetables instead of frozen or that I shouldn’t buy my food at Wal-Mart or other big-box stores or that THEY do other things differently and so I should try to do things their way. You might hear the same things from people as you proceed with your own food storage. I’ll offer these few thoughts to the few points above and let you decide for yourself what is best for you.
1. I typically buy frozen vegetables unless fresh vegetables are in season because I can keep the vegetables in the freezer until I’m ready to dehydrate or cook them, and if the vegetables aren’t in season, I’m not keen on paying high prices now when I can wait for much lower prices when whichever fruit or vegetable is in season. It doesn’t make much sense to pay high prices for one thing now if you can buy other fruits or vegetables that are in season at a given time and which are cheaper as a result.
2. I own several Nesco American Harvester food dehydrators that I’ve picked up for about $25 each on eBay over the period of a couple years. They’re not high-end machines like the Excalibur, but they get the job done. And personally, I’d rather have multiple dehydrators since 1. I dehydrate a lot of food; and 2. if something happens to one machine, I still have a backup. Just my two cents, but these machines can save your life. I don’t think I’m exaggerating in saying that — at the moment, I’ve got about 20 quarts of spinach alone (that’s about 80 lbs. before dehydration) that I can keep in storage for a long time until I decide to eat it. The security of knowing I can prepare food by dehydrating it and storing it for several years until I need it (and to have a lot of food on hand that can feed me and my family for a long time) helps me worry less about food so I can turn my attention to other long-term needs. Having said all of this, Nesco puts out a very good product, and I’m willing to stake my entire food-dehydration process on their product.
3. I realize that buying food from various big-box stores, most notably Wal-Mart, is a contentious issue for a lot of people, so I’ll lay out my case and let you decide what is best for yourself. I buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season from local sources whenever and wherever possible. But as I type this, it’s early March, snow is still on the ground in some areas and not many crops are ready for harvest at this time. There’s no local farmers market selling tomatoes along the highway right now, so I’ve been buying packages of frozen spinach recently for about $1.30 per pound at Wal-Mart. The tradeoff of spending my money at big-box stores for frozen vegetables I can’t get fresh, inexpensive and in-season from other places at the moment is the price I’m willing to pay just for now until the local growing season begins and I can buy from local growers. I’d rather make a regular series of purchases from big-box stores during the offseason and keep building up my food storage year-round than only stock up on food when I can get it fresh and local. Most of us go grocery-shopping year-round, so I think it just makes sense to keep stocking up on food-storage items year-round as well.
Now, having gotten those caveats out of the way, on to the good stuff…
These food-grade plastic mesh sheets available from Nesco have saved me a lot of headaches since my first forays into food dehydration. As I noted above, high-sugar foods get really gummy when heated and can stick like super-glue to the dehydrator trays unless you use these mesh sheets. But since spinach isn’t a high-sugar food, we don’t have to worry about this at the moment. However, I will point out that because of how fine the mesh is, it will also help keep food particles from dropping through the trays themselves.
Let’s start with four quarts of frozen spinach:
I put quarts of frozen spinach into, well, quart-sized containers and let the spinach thaw for 6 to 8 hours. I could theoretically microwave it to accelerate the thawing process, but since I want to keep the vitamin content as intact as possible, I just allow several hours for the spinach to thaw and then put it into the dehydrator.
So I start off by spooning the spinach onto a dehydrator tray…
…and then spread it out evenly and as thinly as possible. You want to have whatever product you’re dehydrating spread out as thinly as possible so that you can have as much air flow through the product as possible:
Then I put the lid on, turn on the dehydrator, and in about six hours (your dehydration times may vary) I take the lid off the dehydrator to check on things.
You can see that after several hours of drying, the spinach has shriveled up a bit as the water has been removed. But you’ll notice that some of the pieces are kind of clumped up, and I can feel that they are still a little soggy, so I break those pieces into smaller pieces…
…and after another 4 to 6 hours, it’s done:
And now things get a little tricky.
These dehydrator trays are about 12 inches across and obviously not flexible. The plastic mesh sheet are flexible, but they have little holes all over and a big hole in the middle. The challenge is how to get the spinach from the tray and into a mason jar without spilling it all over the place. The first time I tried to figure out how to do this, I remembered a large, flat box in my office…
Don’t laugh…because it works.
I opened the box flaps, turned the box on its side, stuck the dehydrator tray into the box, inverted the box and then poured the spinach slowly from the box into a quart-sized mason jar, compacting it as much as possible until I couldn’t fit any more spinach into the jar. About 4 lbs. (pre-dehydrated weight) of spinach will fit into a one-quart mason jar if you pack it in tightly.
A couple notes about serving sizes of dehydrated fruits, vegetables and anything else: Obviously because whatever you dehydrate will take up less space after the water is removed, your serving sizes will be proportionately smaller. Leafy vegetables such as spinach are about one-fourth of their original volume after dehydration, so if you’re wanting to cook one cup of spinach, about 1/4 cup of dehydrated spinach or whatever other leafy vegetable will be what you need. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and other fleshier vegetables and fruits will take up about 1/8 of their original volume after dehydration, so measure accordingly. Breaking up the dehydrated pieces into smaller pieces will help you get a more accurate measurement.
To help you get started:
Here’s a file on dehydrating vegetables that I found at this link. The one thing that I’d recommend you NOT DO is peel the skin off of your fruits or vegetables before you dehydrate them if in fact the skins are edible. The skins are a great source of fiber and vitamins, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice to peel the skins off even if the instructions on that PDF file calls for peeling.
Got ideas or suggestions? Post ‘em below!
For the sake of full disclosure, however, I will admit that there are certain kinds of foods I prefer to order from certain companies because those particular foods can be a bit challenging to dehydrate. In particular, foods that are high in naturally-occurring sugar will, of course, get gooey and sticky when they are heated. I dehydrated a batch of apples a couple years ago that were darn near impossible to pry off of the dehydrator tray, a problem that didn’t get solved until I bought food-grade plastic mesh sheets to put on the trays first to keep high-sugar foods and other items from sticking to them. (More on those sheets in a moment.) And in calculating how much or how little end product I was ending up with for the time I invested, apples (which had to first be cored, diced and dipped in lemon juice to prevent browning) ended up being more labor-intensive than I wanted to deal with (your mileage may vary), so I decided to order a can of dehydrated apples from WaltonFeed.com and have been very happy with the quality and the price. I’m planning to order a case of banana chips and a case of tomato powder from them very soon as well. (Editor’s note 8-26-10: Since I first posted this thread back in March, I’ve found much better shipping prices — $5 for orders over $75 — at BulkFoods.com.)
Having said that, though, I’ve found that most other foods are much less problematic to dehydrate, so your options are pretty wide-open as to what you can make with relatively little effort. And one thing you want to aim for as you’re putting together your food storage is to make sure you’re getting the biggest nutritional bang for your buck. I promise I won’t “preach” too much on the merits of making and storing food that is “good for you,” but it just makes sense: Healthy eating is especially important in high-stress situations, and if you’re in a situation where you’re having to rely primarily on your food storage for a while, I’m guessing that the situation itself will be stressful. So let’s use my favorite vegetable to illustrate how easy it can be to dehydrate and store food for your long-term survival and health:
SPINACH!
Now, I’m not suggesting that YOU should like spinach, I’m just saying that as far as vegetables go, besides being my favorite, spinach is also packed with vitamins and flavor. And it’s pretty darn easy to dehydrate. So let’s start with the dehydrator.
A few caveats before we begin: I’ve had several of my ideas criticized online by people who tell me I’m not using the “best” dehydrator or that I should buy only fresh vegetables instead of frozen or that I shouldn’t buy my food at Wal-Mart or other big-box stores or that THEY do other things differently and so I should try to do things their way. You might hear the same things from people as you proceed with your own food storage. I’ll offer these few thoughts to the few points above and let you decide for yourself what is best for you.
1. I typically buy frozen vegetables unless fresh vegetables are in season because I can keep the vegetables in the freezer until I’m ready to dehydrate or cook them, and if the vegetables aren’t in season, I’m not keen on paying high prices now when I can wait for much lower prices when whichever fruit or vegetable is in season. It doesn’t make much sense to pay high prices for one thing now if you can buy other fruits or vegetables that are in season at a given time and which are cheaper as a result.
2. I own several Nesco American Harvester food dehydrators that I’ve picked up for about $25 each on eBay over the period of a couple years. They’re not high-end machines like the Excalibur, but they get the job done. And personally, I’d rather have multiple dehydrators since 1. I dehydrate a lot of food; and 2. if something happens to one machine, I still have a backup. Just my two cents, but these machines can save your life. I don’t think I’m exaggerating in saying that — at the moment, I’ve got about 20 quarts of spinach alone (that’s about 80 lbs. before dehydration) that I can keep in storage for a long time until I decide to eat it. The security of knowing I can prepare food by dehydrating it and storing it for several years until I need it (and to have a lot of food on hand that can feed me and my family for a long time) helps me worry less about food so I can turn my attention to other long-term needs. Having said all of this, Nesco puts out a very good product, and I’m willing to stake my entire food-dehydration process on their product.
3. I realize that buying food from various big-box stores, most notably Wal-Mart, is a contentious issue for a lot of people, so I’ll lay out my case and let you decide what is best for yourself. I buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season from local sources whenever and wherever possible. But as I type this, it’s early March, snow is still on the ground in some areas and not many crops are ready for harvest at this time. There’s no local farmers market selling tomatoes along the highway right now, so I’ve been buying packages of frozen spinach recently for about $1.30 per pound at Wal-Mart. The tradeoff of spending my money at big-box stores for frozen vegetables I can’t get fresh, inexpensive and in-season from other places at the moment is the price I’m willing to pay just for now until the local growing season begins and I can buy from local growers. I’d rather make a regular series of purchases from big-box stores during the offseason and keep building up my food storage year-round than only stock up on food when I can get it fresh and local. Most of us go grocery-shopping year-round, so I think it just makes sense to keep stocking up on food-storage items year-round as well.
Now, having gotten those caveats out of the way, on to the good stuff…
These food-grade plastic mesh sheets available from Nesco have saved me a lot of headaches since my first forays into food dehydration. As I noted above, high-sugar foods get really gummy when heated and can stick like super-glue to the dehydrator trays unless you use these mesh sheets. But since spinach isn’t a high-sugar food, we don’t have to worry about this at the moment. However, I will point out that because of how fine the mesh is, it will also help keep food particles from dropping through the trays themselves.
Let’s start with four quarts of frozen spinach:
I put quarts of frozen spinach into, well, quart-sized containers and let the spinach thaw for 6 to 8 hours. I could theoretically microwave it to accelerate the thawing process, but since I want to keep the vitamin content as intact as possible, I just allow several hours for the spinach to thaw and then put it into the dehydrator.
So I start off by spooning the spinach onto a dehydrator tray…
…and then spread it out evenly and as thinly as possible. You want to have whatever product you’re dehydrating spread out as thinly as possible so that you can have as much air flow through the product as possible:
Then I put the lid on, turn on the dehydrator, and in about six hours (your dehydration times may vary) I take the lid off the dehydrator to check on things.
You can see that after several hours of drying, the spinach has shriveled up a bit as the water has been removed. But you’ll notice that some of the pieces are kind of clumped up, and I can feel that they are still a little soggy, so I break those pieces into smaller pieces…
…and after another 4 to 6 hours, it’s done:
And now things get a little tricky.
These dehydrator trays are about 12 inches across and obviously not flexible. The plastic mesh sheet are flexible, but they have little holes all over and a big hole in the middle. The challenge is how to get the spinach from the tray and into a mason jar without spilling it all over the place. The first time I tried to figure out how to do this, I remembered a large, flat box in my office…
Don’t laugh…because it works.
I opened the box flaps, turned the box on its side, stuck the dehydrator tray into the box, inverted the box and then poured the spinach slowly from the box into a quart-sized mason jar, compacting it as much as possible until I couldn’t fit any more spinach into the jar. About 4 lbs. (pre-dehydrated weight) of spinach will fit into a one-quart mason jar if you pack it in tightly.
A couple notes about serving sizes of dehydrated fruits, vegetables and anything else: Obviously because whatever you dehydrate will take up less space after the water is removed, your serving sizes will be proportionately smaller. Leafy vegetables such as spinach are about one-fourth of their original volume after dehydration, so if you’re wanting to cook one cup of spinach, about 1/4 cup of dehydrated spinach or whatever other leafy vegetable will be what you need. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and other fleshier vegetables and fruits will take up about 1/8 of their original volume after dehydration, so measure accordingly. Breaking up the dehydrated pieces into smaller pieces will help you get a more accurate measurement.
Portion size is vital!
Measure your dehydrated foods carefully so you don’t overestimate how long they will last. If a recipe calls for 1 cup of tomatoes, using 1 cup of dehydrated tomatoes will be the rough equivalent of 4 cups of tomatoes, and you’ll burn through your food storage in no time at all. Portion control will help you ensure that your food storage will last as long as you intend it to last, all other circumstances being equal. Measure your dehydrated items carefully. And enjoy them. To help you get started:
Here’s a file on dehydrating vegetables that I found at this link. The one thing that I’d recommend you NOT DO is peel the skin off of your fruits or vegetables before you dehydrate them if in fact the skins are edible. The skins are a great source of fiber and vitamins, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice to peel the skins off even if the instructions on that PDF file calls for peeling.
Got ideas or suggestions? Post ‘em below!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Nine meals from anarchy, Part 3: You really DO have enough space for food
Before I started stocking up on months worth of food and other necessities, just like a lot of you I greatly overestimated how much space all of my food, water and other things would take up. And overestimating how much space you need for important stuff like food and water (is there anything more important to your physical survival?) will probably make some people not start stocking up in the first place because they think it can’t be done, so why try? So to help shoot down misconceptions that stocking up on food takes up too much space, let’s take a look at some photos.
Probably the most ubiquitous item among prepared people is the five-gallon bucket. They don’t take up much space, and they’re very useful and versatile. And so are the buckets:
The box in the picture is from an office-supply store–just your average case of 8-1/2-by-11-inch printer paper. The box itself is just over 11 inches wide and 17 inches high as it appears in this picture. And you can see from the photo that the bucket is smaller than this particular box. I don’t know about you, but I have at least a couple dozen boxes this size in various places around my house. One of these five-gallon buckets can hold about 25 pounds of rice, beans or similar bulk foodstuffs (sealed up in food-grade mylar storage bags with oxygen absorbers inside–more on that soon). So if I have a couple dozen boxes this size in various places around my small-ish house containing stuff that might not be as useful for my survival as, say, food, couldn’t I very easily find someplace to put important stuff like lots of food and move the boxes of paper, books, Christmas ornaments, etc., somewhere else if I really wanted to be able to eat for a while? I kind of like to eat every day, so I couldn’t see myself not making room for extra food, especially with the economic uncertainty in our country and around the world right now. I could lose my job tomorrow…you could lose yours, too…but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about food for a little while if I started buying and storing it right now.
These quart-sized mason jars are one of the handiest kitchen accessories around, and pretty darn inexpensive–about $9 for a case of a dozen jars. And buying spices in bulk quantities and storing them in mason jars will help carry your food a long way away from boring and will last you for a long time–just how long do you think it will take to go through a quart of cumin or garlic? Speaking of which, on the top shelf in this photo are (left to right) red pepper flakes, dehydrated tomatoes (which I dehydrated myself in one of my handy Nesco dehydrators), garlic powder and chicken (also courtesy of my Nesco). Visible on the bottom shelf are jars of cinnamon, cayenne, dehydrated spinach (back right) and cumin.
And to give you a top view of how little space you need in your cabinet for lots of flavor, here are a dozen mason jars in the box you saw in the photo at the top of this page:
I’ll continue tomorrow with this notion that you can cram a lot more food into a much smaller space than you think.
Probably the most ubiquitous item among prepared people is the five-gallon bucket. They don’t take up much space, and they’re very useful and versatile. And so are the buckets:
The box in the picture is from an office-supply store–just your average case of 8-1/2-by-11-inch printer paper. The box itself is just over 11 inches wide and 17 inches high as it appears in this picture. And you can see from the photo that the bucket is smaller than this particular box. I don’t know about you, but I have at least a couple dozen boxes this size in various places around my house. One of these five-gallon buckets can hold about 25 pounds of rice, beans or similar bulk foodstuffs (sealed up in food-grade mylar storage bags with oxygen absorbers inside–more on that soon). So if I have a couple dozen boxes this size in various places around my small-ish house containing stuff that might not be as useful for my survival as, say, food, couldn’t I very easily find someplace to put important stuff like lots of food and move the boxes of paper, books, Christmas ornaments, etc., somewhere else if I really wanted to be able to eat for a while? I kind of like to eat every day, so I couldn’t see myself not making room for extra food, especially with the economic uncertainty in our country and around the world right now. I could lose my job tomorrow…you could lose yours, too…but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about food for a little while if I started buying and storing it right now.
“But I’ve heard that eating food-storage stuff gets boring…”
Yeah, I’m not much for boring food, either. Which is why I stock up on what I like to eat anyway, with a lot of spices and other accoutrements to keep my food from getting boring, bland or blah. Take a look at my latest, um, “cabinet meeting”:These quart-sized mason jars are one of the handiest kitchen accessories around, and pretty darn inexpensive–about $9 for a case of a dozen jars. And buying spices in bulk quantities and storing them in mason jars will help carry your food a long way away from boring and will last you for a long time–just how long do you think it will take to go through a quart of cumin or garlic? Speaking of which, on the top shelf in this photo are (left to right) red pepper flakes, dehydrated tomatoes (which I dehydrated myself in one of my handy Nesco dehydrators), garlic powder and chicken (also courtesy of my Nesco). Visible on the bottom shelf are jars of cinnamon, cayenne, dehydrated spinach (back right) and cumin.
And to give you a top view of how little space you need in your cabinet for lots of flavor, here are a dozen mason jars in the box you saw in the photo at the top of this page:
I’ll continue tomorrow with this notion that you can cram a lot more food into a much smaller space than you think.
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