Preserving Food by Dehydrating

I have always had a problem with throwing food away. I also like to prepare for the rainy day. We live 20 minutes from any shopping facility and we grow some of our own food. I have learned that the most economical way to preserve food is to dry it. It takes up less space, uses no sugar, and lasts up to two years. I do not do a lot to the food other than wash it, slice it, and prepare it for use. I do scald green beans, however.

Any time I bring food into the house either through harvesting, gleaning, or shopping, I sort out what we can eat immediately between now and my next town trip, and I preserve the rest. Green onions, celery, carrots, beans, peppers, and fruit dry very nicely. I have a large food dryer with 7 trays. To preserve electricity I fill all the trays up with sliced fruit, sliced mushrooms, chopped onions, sliced peppers, chopped celery, parsley, herbs, zucchini, beans, carrots, and whatever other veggies I am choosing to dry.

I have found storing dried foods in plastic bags to be a bad idea as moths can chew through and destroy the food. Freezing the plastic encased dried food takes up freezer space needed for freezing eggs and meat. A tight sealing glass jar is the best method of storing the dried food. Another plus for drying over canning or even freezing is that the dried food is alive with all the enzymes still present in the food.

My vitamins and supplements come with a small packet of silica gel for keeping things dry and fresh. When I am through with them I put that packet in a jar of dried food. I find that keeps things fresh longer. I store these glass jars (recycled from jars of jam and other items purchased at the grocery store) on a shelf in alphabetical order of what is in them and labeled with the date of processing. When I am in a hurry, making a soup or stew is very simple with tossing the dry ingredients into the crock pot with the meat and water and seasonings without messing up my kitchen.

By Leila B.