It’s that time of year again! Many preppers are picking out of their gardens daily or else taking advantage of local produce in their grocery store in an effort to put up more fresh healthy foods. The only question here is what methods of food storage are best?
When grid power is available pretty much all storage options are available. We can freeze, can, dehydrate, you name it! Let’s have a look at as many grid up methods as we can think of.
1 – Freezing.
Home freezing is likely the easiest way to put food up for later use. A lot of what we buy such as meat, poultry, and fish can go directly into the freezer as is from the supermarket, although rewrapping using vacuum sealers or placing in specially designed Tupperware containers can extend the life of your foods and help prevent freezerburn. Freezing has the disadvantage of not working when the grid does go down though. If this happens, we can endure a few days without significant losses, but power outages that last weeks or more will require a generator to keep the freezer cold. We’ll talk about that on Thursday’s Prepper 101 series. Optionally, you can thaw frozen foods and preserve them in other ways, but that will require energy in some form or another, which may not be available. The storage life of preserved foods is limited by how long you can keep the freezer powered.
2 – Water Bath Canning
This is a fairly simple method of food preservation, but has pros and cons. First of all, the equipment to do this is quite affordable. A canner complete with rack and accessories can be had at Walmart for about $50.00. Jars will cost less than $20.00 per dozen and are reusable. Water bath canning is limited to high acid foods, basically fruits and tomatoes (I know, tomatoes ARE fruits, yada yada yada). Foods processed in a waterbath canner can last several years (I would say 3-5) without further energy input.
3 – Pressure Canning
Pressure canning is one of my favorite methods of preservation and one I use regularly. The cost of a pressure canner is somewhat higher than a water bath canner. Ranging from a Presto brand canner at about $150.00 to the All American brand that can go for $700.00 for the larger ones. The biggest advantage in my opinion is the variety of foods that can be canned. I’ve even successfully pressure canned foods that the “experts” say can’t be. Meats, seafood, veggies, soups, stews, and more can be pressure canned. The process can be a bit hard on the newer and less expensive canning jars which are notably thinner walled than the older ones. Again, foods that are pressure canned can last several (3-5) years without further energy input.
4 – Dehydrating
Dehydrators are great tools when the grid is up…sort of. Certain foods such as fruits and veggies dehydrate well and will last a long time when properly stored. On the other hand, meats can be dehydrated, but will not last long even when stored optimally (think in terms of weeks instead of years). Dehydrators are also great for drying home grown herbs. Dehydrating is a long process though, usually requiring 8 – 20 hours depending on a few factors such as type and size of food and relative environmental humidity. The popular with preppers brand excalibur 9 tray dehydrator will run you a tad over $300.00 on Amazon.
5 – Root Cellaring
This is quite the under discussed method for food preservation. I’m not quite sure where the name came from, but I’m willing to bet that it was derived from the types of foods that store well using it. You guessed it, root veggies along with some varieties of squash and some fruits can be root cellared. Longevity is difficult to pin down as so many factors are involved such as temperature, humidity, etc. Suffice it to say though, if your roots & fruits last from fall to spring, you’ve come out pretty well. The cost is also difficult to nail down. Building one as a small room in your basement can run a few hundred dollars, but if you need to dig one and construct concrete waterproofed walls, then we could be talking tens of thousands of dollars.
6 – Home Freeze Drying
Hold up, did I just say home freeze drying? Yes I did! It is possible, and even somewhat affordable to produce freeze dried foods at home. Harvest Right has several models of freeze dryers ranging in price from $2000 – $3000 USD. These units freeze dry up to 2500 lbs of fresh food per year. Freeze dried foods will last 25 – 30 years just like the commercial brands. I realize that it is a bit of an investment, but the savings on emergency long term food supplies can be quickly realized!
To sum things up, here are my picks for best food storage options for use while the grid is up in order from best to worst:
1 – Home Freeze Drying
2 – Pressure Canning
3 – Water Bath Canning
4 – Dehydrating
5 – Root Cellaring
6 – Freezing
