We recently had our monthly emergency prepared-ness meeting, and since I have already taught the group everything that I know, I asked My Friend Lauren and My Friend Jay to be our guest speakers. My Friend Lauren has been doing a lot of home food dehydrating, and she gave a presentation that absolutely amazed and inspired me!
Why would you want to dehydrate food? Dehydrated food weighs less (beneficial to those who move frequently), requires less space to store, and has a great shelf life when stored properly. The only drawback that I can see is that you need to account for water to reconstitute the food when planning water storage, or store some commercially canned vegetables, etc. (which contain water), in case there was also a problem with the water supply. But as long as the water supply remains good, this is a great way to go. Also, there are many foods, such as banana chips and pineapple tidbits, that are great eaten right out of the bag.
My Friend Lauren brought many visual aids, including her equipment of choice: her food dehydrator and her "Food Saver". The brand of dehydrator that she prefers is the Excalibur brand. Why does she prefer this model? In some dehydrators the fan is located at either the bottom or the top of the dehydrator. The trays that are nearest the fan get thoroughly dry, but the food in the trays that are the furthest from the fan don't always get completely dehydrated. The fan in the Excalibur is in the back of the unit; the air flows evenly over all of the trays, giving a more consistent result. If you search the website you can buy a new dehydrator, or you can purchase a refurbished model to help with your budget. My Friend Lauren is also a big fan of the "Food Saver" vacuum sealer, and she actually prefers one of the older, less flashy models (similar to the Model 2460A). She does use a heavier bag than they sell, however. She likes to use a 3-ply bag that she finds at a website called dcprocessingequipment.com. Even more exciting to me were the attachments that you can use on home canning jars; they come in both narrow and wide mouth sizes. My Friend places her deydrated food in the canning jar, adds an oxygen absorption packet, places the top on the jar (but not the ring), and then uses the Food Saver jar attachment. After it works its magic she removes the attachment and places the ring on the lid, and she has some convenient food storage packaging for her dehydrated food. (She likes to use oxygen absorption packets ["oxy packs"] in both her bags and jars for extra protection.)
There were some items that she did not recommend for dehydration, with meat being one of them (unless you like jerky, which is actually a favorite at our house -- The Old Coot Who Married Me will pay a crazy price for seasoned jerky from the meat market!). Because of health and safety concerns, she also buys the following items commercially prepared: dried shredded cheese, powdered eggs, powdered sour cream, and butter powder. She buys these items from a company called Emergency Essentials, but there are other companies out there if you want to shop around.
However, there are many things that CAN be dehydrated. Unlike me, My Friends are "green thumb" gardeners, and dehydrating is a great way to help them preserve their harvest. However, if that is not enough, she will buy fresh produce (the fresher, the better -- junk in/junk out!) or even bags of frozen produce and dehydrate those!
The whole presentation was amazing, but there were two items that My Friend dehydrates that I would have never thought of. The first is tomato sauce. She uses the tray insert for the dehydrator that you would use for making fruit leather, and sure enough, she gets sheets of tomato sauce that look like a fruit roll-up! Amazing! The second thing that she showed us was dehydrated Bush's baked beans. Wow! I would have never thought of that! My Friend Lauren stressed that it is important to have some fully-cooked foods that can be reconstitued and then simply warmed, in order to save cooking fuel (if fuel availability is a concern).
The amazing thing is the transformation that occurs when water is added to the dehydrated food. My Friend showed us some dehydrated corn and it pretty much looked like little rocks. However, she brought a large pot of soup that she made from her stash, and the corn looked as beautiful as ever! Bananas and some other foods can be a little brown, but Lauren's new motto is, "Brown is beautiful!"
Okay, now that we are all dehydrating, what will we do with all of this dried-out food? There are many books out there with recipes for dehydrated food, but My Friend Lauren was especially excited about a book that she had just bought: "The Dehydrator Bible". She let me thumb through it and I recall seeing a recipe that called for a hunk of tomato sauce, and it even gave the size of the piece that you need! My Friends love their fruits and vegetables, and I am a big berry lover, and there were recipes in this book to keep all of us cooking and eating for quite awhile!
Where did My Friend Lauren gain all of this knowlege and skill about food storage? A lot of it was obtained by just forging ahead and trying things (she's just that kind of gal!), but she swears by a certain website. Dehydrate2Store is an incredible resource that she highly recommends, and it will give you a good background to get you started.
I am so excited about learning this new skill! Thank you, My Friend Lauren!
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