Best Ways To Preserve Food – Rogue’s 31 Days To Readiness [Day 10]

Have you seen day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7, day 8 and day 9?

Storing food and water that we purchase from the store is certainly important.

But what about preserving your own food?

Some of these may need some investment and during this pandemic, some of these may be downright impossible to find. I encourage you to reach out to friends, neighbors, relatives or your general community to find the necessary items needed.

Here are some of the best ways to preserve our own food:

1. Dehydrating – I started my dehydrating journey with a simple round Nesco and for many, many years I loved it and used it often. I later upgraded to an Excalibur and my dehydrating journey exploded with potential. Now I dehydrate using the power of the sun with a solar dehydrator that we built. Dehydrating is a fantastic way to preserve food on your own for a fairly long period. If it’s stored in a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber, it can be preserved for at least 2 years, depending on the type of food, of course. You can invest as little as $60 on a new dehydrator or you can try to find a used one from a garage sale, Facebook, Craigslist, friend, etc. You could also look into building your own small solar dehydrator.
2. Freezing – We run our freezer completely on solar and it works fantastically. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with freezing foods for preservation purposes, especially for meal planning. I would highly recommend an alternative energy source to help run it every few hours or so. Make sure to keep it packed full of stuff so it works more efficiently and keeps food colder for longer in a power outage.
3. Smoking – Smoked meats? Smoked cheeses? Smoked fish? Smoke all the things! Smoking is a great way to preserve certain types of food for extra time. You could invest in a commercial smoker, or you could make your own primitive smoker with a good ol’ fire.
4. Canning – You can anything! Almost. Whether it’s pressure canning or water bath canning, there are so many recipes and ways to can foods. Do be careful to make sure you have a clean environment and you follow instructions exactly when canning. Canning has the potential to cause botulism which can make you pretty sick. So just follow all the instructions exactly. Canning takes a bit more effort and time than any of the above preservation methods (well, except maybe for smoking), but it’s certainly one of the best methods. You can get started with a basic investment of $20-30 for a water bath canner and a couple tools. A pressure canner will usually run around $100-300.
5. Fermentation – Making your own pickles or other fermented foods is a great preservation method. Though do keep in mind that if you want to ferment a lot of pickles that you won’t be able to eat for a while, you will need to can them.
6. Misc – There are some random preservation methods for specific foods like dipping eggs in mineral oil and waxing cheeses. If you’re wondering about preserving a certain type of food, simply do an internet search for ‘how to preserve “such and such”‘ and it should come up with some great results.

During the coronavirus pandemic, everyone has picked up canning and dehydrating and these items have been very difficult to find. If you’re having trouble with one method, simply focus on another method until you can gain access to another method.

For instance, if you really want to can, but can’t find any canning supplies, then stick with freezing.

Also, as I mentioned above, you may be able to borrow the equipment from a friend, neighbor, relative, etc. Be on the constant lookout for used items on Facebook and Craigslist.

Whatever you have available to you is what’s going to be the best option.

See you in day 11!