IT’S one thing to deal with power cuts and it’s another to try to preserve food without a refrigerator! Have you ever had this happen: the power goes out due to a storm or some other calamity while you’re away on vacation, and you come home to a freezer full of spoiled food? If not, count yourself lucky! Imagine what would happen if you had to depend on that food and couldn’t replace it?
In case of a natural disaster, electrical grid failure or some big disruption in the food distribution system, how could you preserve your food without a refrigerator?
Website www.thealternativedaily.com reports three best ways to preserve food without a refrigerator.
n Dehydration
Nearly everything can be dried, including many fruits and vegetables like tuberous and bulbous root vegetables, shelled beans, celery, peppers and fruits with low moisture content. Drying is the easiest and oldest food preservation method around.
Thousands of years ago, our ancestors learned that by removing moisture from food, they could concentrate natural salts and sugars so that the action of decay enzymes was slowed and bacteria and moulds would not flourish.
When drying food, keep in mind that it must be dry through to the centre and that the thinner you slice the food, the faster it will dry and the better it will keep.
For this method of preservation, you’ll first need to prepare your food by either mashing it into a pulp, cutting it into small pieces, or stringing it up on a rope or thick string.
Fruits like apricots and peaches can be preserved similar to the way you’ve probably seen them in store packages, like “leather.” You’ll first mash them into a pulp and spread the fruit out into a ΒΌ” thick layer across a flat, clean surface, and then let it dry in the sun.
Dried vegetables aren’t all that tasty eaten out of hand, but once rehydrated, they add flavour, texture, and important nutrients to soups and stews.
They’re also easy to store in air-tight containers. Just chop, cube or cut them in half, and spread them out one layer deep on screening or cheesecloth that’s stretched over a frame. Cover with additional screening or cheesecloth and place them out in the sun until dry.
* Canning
This method applies heat to food in a closed glass canning jar to stop natural spoilage and removes air from the jar to create a seal. There are two main methods that can be used.
The first includes a water bath, which is best for high acid foods like tomatoes, salsas and pickles, as well as fruits and jams. The second is pressure canning, generally best for vegetables, meats, poultry and seafood.
Home canning isn’t difficult, but it is important to follow each step of the operation correctly, and at the proper time.
You’ll need to be able to distinguish between various processing methods, as well as to be familiar with which procedure to use with a particular food.
* Storing in a cool place
You can also use a cool root cellar to keep most root crop vegetables, like beets, potatoes, yams, turnips, and carrots, as well as some fruits, like apples, fresh. The most important factor in using a root cellar is to keep everything dry and cool.
