Comments on: Preserving Food When You Have No Money

By: Quinn Singleton

Quinn Singleton — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:50:46 +0000

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By: joe

joe — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:04:24 +0000

heeeelp food is a fake it is poisones on this planet… my planit is sooooo much beter then earth ughhh

By: NM

NM — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:41:58 +0000

A thermos makes perfect yogurt. If it’s too much to fit in one thermos, I use two.

By: greenSearcher

greenSearcher — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:47:34 +0000

Using a dehydrator one can store most of the garden produce over the winter. I have dried herbs, fruit and leather which is the norm. I have also dried onions, leeks and swiss chard when I had more than I could use. I then added the crumbled chard to soups, rice or beans; and the leeks cooked up into soups as good as the fresh ones. I want to dry more odds and ends from the garden, in thin slices or fine dice. These veges can be used as is in soups and casseroles or powdered and used to make vegetable broth. In the winter we cook alot more, so using rehydrated foods is easy. Also, one can dry the foods from the root cellar when they are beginning to be pasty their prime, giving your another 6 weeks or so of food that otherwise might go to the compost pile or the chickens.

By: greenSearcher

greenSearcher — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:39:28 +0000

This year I have been researching root cellaring and fermentation for storing foodstuffs. I have the canning equipment and if I can get food in bulk I can, but for most things I tend to dehydrate the foods. Living in North Texas, having a consistently cold area for storage can be a challenge, but at least I have two growing seasons that with careful planning can feed the family year round.
Rosa, if you have access to a dehydrator it can be used to make yogurt. I verified the thermostat in the dryer was accurate before my first batch, and what I do is place the quart jars of yogurt in a preheated dehydrator, wrapped in bath towels and run it at 115F until the yogurt is set, it generally takes less than 6 hours. Once it is ready, I pop it is the fridge.

By: kethry

kethry — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:01:08 +0000

regarding root vegetable storage, if you don’t have a cellar, a popular way of storing them in the UK (at least, in the days before freezers and fridges) is something called “clamping”: basically storing your veg in a big box of sand.. http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/Storing_the_Surplus_Potatoes_and_Root_Vegetables.php has the info. might be handy for someone who doesn’t have a cellar/basement – a lot of places in the UK don’t.

keth
xx

By: Eva

Eva — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:43:41 +0000

Beware if buying used canning jars that they really are canning jars and not just old mayo jars. Real canning jars have a flat surface on the rim- others are rounder. Look at jars you have at home to learn to tell the difference.

By: Nita

Nita — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:05:30 +0000

We use freezer space for high value items, like meat, because that is our farm business. The best freezers we own, our our old 1950′s chest models. They run less, have better insulation, and the most important thing – they are painted metal inside, so there is no freezer burn taste. The plastic is what causes the smell and taste after some time. No matter how clean we get the newer ones, the plastic just hold an “old” smell. I found some special berries I had been hiding and just waiting for the right time to use. This really probably goes on the next post, but they were 7 years old. I had forgotten that I had hid them. I didn’t cook them, we ate them on yogurt after they thawed. They were fine. I’m not recommending keeping stuff in the freezer for that long, just wanted to pass on this tip, because people give away these old freezers, they think they are no good, and some may not be, but ours work well.

If you are buying a new freezer, buy a manual defrost, they run less, and won’t dry out the food.

By: valereee

valereee — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:11:01 +0000

We’re putting on a screened porch addition to our house this year. The current plan is for it to be on a slab. I’m wondering if there’s some way to do a root cellar while we’re doing this. I tried to cellar apples and butternut squash in our always 65-degrees basement last year. The squash did well, but the apples went soft very quickly.

By: Survivalist News

Survivalist News — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:10:55 +0000

What about a community canning center. Pool the resources of your local neighbors and set up a canning center. Someones garage or back room of a community center where everyone takes their produce. Ask for a small donation to cover the costs and add equipment.