Food Preservation

I just wanted to discuss some different ways of preserving foods. Recently I went to Sam's Wholesale Club and purchased a vacumn sealer which touts dried goods such as flour, bisquits, etc. can be stored for 1-2 years or more through vacumn sealing.

Because I also can foods - I know canned foods can last for upto 3 years or more depending on storage temps. I would be happy to answer some questions on either topic or teach people how to do either.

Remember, not only can you can fruits and vegetables, but you can also can meats:
Hamburger, chicken, ham, beef, pork, lamb and all hold for years.

In the event of power outages (hurricanes or other) you could simply eat the food from the jar because during the pressure canning, you already fully cooked the food.

I also bought a bread machine so my family could make bread then vacumn seal the bread. Others surely have come up with unique food preservation ideas and I invite them to share their experiences in this forum.

Check out using a solar dehydrator for food preservation. It is easier done and as good as canning. There are plans on the internet showing how to build one out of cardboard boxes and a pane of glass so, it is something that can be easily improvised and is only dependent upon sunshine to operate.

Hello, I too can meats, as we don't have enough solar electricity for a freezer except in the winter when it is cold enough outside to keep it frozen. There is a website for self sufficiency with some great ideas. www.endtimesreport.com On that site it tells you how to can butter, and make dehydrated hamburger, and I just finished doing it, and it really works, and the taste is fine. And today I am doing something I just learned: Our chickens lay way more eggs this time of year than we need, but in the winter months, we don't get barely any. I found if you take the fresh eggs and dip them in melted lard, and lay them in a bucket with salt, they will keep for at least a year.

Thanks for the input. Hey dc9 can you post a link to the solar dehydrator for us please?

Hopefulfilled, what about hot climates like Florida - do the eggs still stay good?

I would imagine you would want to put them in a root cellar or some other cool place. That is where I am going to put them. By the way, I have dozens of books on self sufficiency, and preserving and growing food, and if anyone is interested, if I had to choose one, it would be Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living. It is a huge, incredibly useful book, and geared to people with not much money, but able to work at it. She also gives the easiest ways to do things. If you google a subject you are interested in with her name on the google also, it will probably go to her book, on Amazon on the page you are interested in. If you try a lot of subjects one by one, you will be amazed at how much info is in this book.

Sure - check out the cardboard box deehydrator - http://www.i4at.org/surv/soldehyd.htm - it can easily be modified to use plywood and glass.

Thanks - I'll check it out. Anyone have any other ideas?

I good book I have had probably 20 years is Readers Digest "Back To Basics"
It covers so many traditional skills. You could probably get one at your local library to check it out before buying. I know they still sell them on Amazon. I have the first addition, I have not seen the second addition but It looks like it has all the first addition does and more. It is a wealth of information. Everything from how to can pickles to well digging and even making a methane digester to tin smithing and black smithing. Also setting up a farm, livstock, and building etc. I have referred to it many times over the years.

For basic survival skills, you can't beat the way our grandparents in the country lived. The skills they developed, and much of that lore is preserved in the "Foxfire" books. There are many volumes in the set and cover everything from home remedies to cabin building to how to distill turpentine to how to make a muzzle loader from scratch to any of the skills that would be developed by a community of primarily subsistence farmers. The farmers in this case were up in Rabun Gap, Ga. The books were the result of field trips and what the students learned with their high school teacher. Very good reads. They also cover moonshining and how to build, maintain and operate a still.

Oh Yes how could I forget the firefox series! Excellent information. Anyone know if they are still selling them anwyhere?

Sure the books are still available and you can buy it as a complete set - http://www.foxfire.org/thefoxfirebookseries.aspx

I too enjoyed and found useful "Back to Basics" and the "Foxfire" series. However, handsdown, the best book EVER on the subject is "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Carla Emery. This book is the size of a phonebook and gives actual recipes and instructions on how to grow, raise and prepare all plants and livestock animals, and how-to really practice the traditional homesteading arts. Other books I have studied have been more theoretical or anecdotal. This is truly the ultimate "how-to" book.

Also, Ms. Emery has a very warm writing style. As you read her voluminous book you realize how much of a labor of love (for all of her readers) it was for her to write it and you get an insight as to how knowledgeable and kind she must have been.

The Ninth Edition of the book came out just a few years ago.

Books are great however, when I posted this topic I was looking for ideas on food preservation. Many people have stretched their finances with today's costs and we know hard times may be on the way. I was looking for ideas on how to help people preserve food for coming shortages and skyrocketing prices.

Food dehydration that dc9 posted was similar to what I was looking for.
How to preserve eggs in hot climates. How to make your own well for water, what do you do to preserve wheat and flour from bugs infesting. If you can't have a cow where you live, or goats, how can you preserve milk for babies or formula.

I thank you for references you have posted, with weblinks, however, I want to generate creative minds here so people can try these ideas. Store-bought food has a shelf life - how do we extend that shelf life. I forgot who posted the vacumn sealer idea but it was great - so I bought one. I even bought my own bread machine and juicer - now how can we preserve the products needed to make these foods for our families.

I buy diatomaceous earth and put a few tablespoons full in each bucket of wheat, oats, or whatever. It kills bugs, but is completely harmless to people. I havn't ever noticed any bugs in the food I have done this to. I can very little, only salsa and a few jellies and jams. Mostly I dehydrate. In the winter we have lots of stews and soups, and more time to cook, and less time in the summer, and since dehydrating takes less time than canning, it works best for us. Dehydrated foods are more nutritious, too. I dry mushrooms, tomatoes, green beans, corn, peas, herbs of all kinds, chives, greens (any kind). I puree tomatoes, and spread the puree on lunch room trays, 1/2 inch thick, cover with a window screen to keep bugs off . (coat tray with olive oil first). and put in the sun in a window, outside, or in a car on the dashboard. It turns out like fruit leather. Just scrape it off when dehydrated with a spatula. Put in jars by rolling it into balls, and throw into a pan of water, and you have tomato paste, or sauce, or juice, depending on the amount of water you use. Some things work better if you parboil them first, corn, beans, and peas, and celery. Hope this helps.

That is more of what I thought would be helpful to people trying to prepare for tough times, thanks for the great post. Any other suggestions from people on this forum?

Being in a survival situation, or even in a stressful low income situation, one needs to do things necessary for food the easiest way possible, and one that takes the least amount of time. So, be sure to have plenty of food that you grow that does NOT need to be prepared by canning, freezing, etc. Here are a couple of foods that I grow that I do not have to deal with in a complicated, time involved way: Parsnips, which are the sweetest, most delicious vegetable ever, can be (and should be, as they are sweeter after being hit by frost or even frozen all winter) left in the ground all winter, and are ready to dig first thing in the spring, all ready to eat. (or if you are hungry, you can dig in the winter, although if the ground is frozen, it is a lot of work). Rhubarb, once planted produces all summer, with barely any work. Egyptian onions, sometimes called perennial onions, or walking onions grow year round, and if you keep planting the little sets that grow on the top, you can have green onions from March, (from ones you planted in August) thru until after frost. The bulbs are not large, and not good for salad, but can be saved for cooking, and have a great flavor. Also, so many roots and other vegetables can just be picked and put in damp sawdust, or sand and stored in a cool room or a root cellar. How much time is saved and it is more pleasant having fresh carrots, onions, squash, cabbage, etc than canned, or frozen. One caveat is that you probably won't find parsnip seed in a store, but only in a mail order catalog. I am saving a few of the best ones in the ground to go to seed as the seed is generally only good for one year, so this is important to do in case one can't get any in case things get bad. I let my lettuce go to seed every year and it comes up first thing in the spring for great salads. If you do this with the vegetables that you can do it with, ie, roots, self seeding, root cellaring cabbage, etc, you will have more time for canning and pickling those special things like salsa, dill pickles, jellies, etc.