Food dehydrating takes but just six simple steps from first digging up the goodies from deep within the soil if you’re lucky enough to have a green thumb and a garden—or the easy way—grabbing fruits and veggies out of the grocery store bins and off their displays … and then happily taking them home so you can safely dehydrate and store them in vacuum-sealed bags, or jars. For long-term storage, we use airtight food-grade buckets with lids, or bins that store neatly in a spare closet. (Spare closet? Who’s she kidding?) Hey, we do what we must!
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Transcript
Food dehydrating takes but just six simple steps from
first digging up the goodies from deep within the soil if you’re
lucky enough to have a green thumb and a garden—or the easy
way—grabbing fruits and veggies out of the grocery store bins
and off their displays … and then happily taking them home so
you can safely dehydrate and store them in vacuum-sealed
bags, or jars.
For long-term storage, we use airtight food-grade buckets with
lids, or bins that store neatly in a spare closet. (Spare closet?
Who’s she kidding?) Hey, we do what we must!
Why DO ALL THIS?
With all the bad stuff going on around the world, it makes
sense to have some food put away for emergencies.
What about the Ebola scare not too
long ago? What if it came back and
we’re all under mandatory house-
quarantine?
Then there are earthquakes, floods,
and hurricanes to contend with on a
yearly basis it seems.
One of my worst fears is an EMP
(Electro-Magnetic Pulse) attack …
whether it’s a natural solar flare, or a
nuclear bomb detonated at “just the
right height” that would kill all our
electronics and way of life as we
know it.
There would be no computers, no
phones, no TV, no cars … it truly IS a
nightmare scenario.
But guess what? You still gotta eat. Read on!
Step 1: Buy It! The best time to dehydrate fruits and veggies is
when they are in season.
Read: cheapest and plentiful.
Check out your local farmers’ markets, the super road-side
stands that are often laden with tomatoes, and cucumbers the
size of baseball bats! Well, not quite, but you see how exciting
it gets?!
Don’t Overlook Frozen Food Keep an eye out in your
grocery store for their
“Buy One, Get One”
sales. Check out frozen
peas and corn—this is a
no-brainer really—you
don’t even have to shell
the peas or mess
around with corn ears …
just dehydrate them
straight from frozen!
Don’t forget about frozen fruit too!
I bet you’re wondering why on earth you’d use frozen foods?
I mean, aren’t they already considered “back up foods”?
Yes, they are.
Consider this: When the power goes out, the frozen food thaws
and you’ve got to eat it all up in one go. Remember, you’ve no
refrigeration at this point until the power is back on. And you
never know “for sure” when that’s gonna be.
I know this for a fact. I live in hurricane-prone central Florida, so
more than once we’ve had to either stuff ourselves to the point
of being sick, and/or throw the soggy stuff away when the
storm has passed.
If you’ve got dehydrated food socked away, it
takes no electricity to maintain it.
It lasts for months and years —if you’ve
vacuum-sealed and stored it correctly.
Step 2: Prepare It! Let’s go over the necessary prep steps prior to dehydrating your
fruits and veggies.
Obviously, make sure your fruit’n’veg are clean! Give ‘em a
good scrub in the sink—get the soil off the spuds and carrots.
Rinse any microscopic bugs off the berries …
Easy-Peasy Slicing Most veggies just need
slicing after washing, so
how easy is that? However,
some of the fruits and
vegetables need blanching.
Why? Blanching helps
vegetables, like carrots, to
retain their bright color –
and – blanching helps
shorten dehydrating time.
More on Blanching When we add small amounts of fruit or vegetables to a small
amount of boiling water, blanching breaks/cracks the outer skin
of unpeeled fruits (like berries! I mean, who’d want to peel
berries?) and therefore the cracks help speed up drying time.
Blanching also stops the enzymatic action inside the fruit —the
darkening effect you see when apples and bananas go brown,
also known as oxidation.
Steaming Steaming is yet another method of preparation for dehydrating;
it achieves the same outcome as blanching.
Ascorbic Acid The other necessary prep step for starchy fruits like bananas,
apples, and pears is ascorbic acid.
What?
Don’t worry … lemon juice can be used
in place of ascorbic acid. (Heck that’s
a bright yellow bottle, isn’t it!?)
ReaLemon™ brand is a great because it
comes in a spray bottle. I liberally
spray my sliced fruits with lemon juice
prior to dehydrating. Again, the lemon
juice deters oxidation.
Back to the frozen foods again …
If you decide to go the easy route and use frozen foods, then
guess what?
NO PREP is necessary, aside from breaking down frozen clumps.
Do that by putting the frozen mass on your dehydrator tray (or
in a sieve) in the sink, and quickly run cold water over the
clumps.
Works like magic!
The reason WHY you don’t need any more preparation for
frozen foods is because the manufacturers have already done
that for us in their preparations to create the frozen food to sell
in the stores. Neat!
SIDE NOTE: All of this information and more is covered in my
eBook and online video courses.
Let’s move on to dehydrators, specifically the Excalibur™ and
the Nesco™ brands. I picked these two because they are the