Drying your own produce ! "Dry It. You'll like it"

[bvar22]

Drying/Dehydrating is becoming increasingly popular among the Organic/Sustainable crowd. Dried foods require less storage space, have loooong shelf lives, require less energy input, offer some nutrition advantages, and are easier/lighter to transport.
There are some good articles on Drying/Dehydrating in the current issues of Mother Earth News and Countryside.

We haven't Dried anything yet, but it is definitely in our future.
We planted some figs and grapes this Spring with the idea of drying them, but after reading these articles, we may expand it to blueberries, strawberries, tomatoes, and even corn.

1. Drying preserves the vitamin, mineral, protein, and fiber content of foods . . . more so than preservation techniques that expose the viands to great changes in temperature.

2. Dehydrated foodstuffs are actually more flavorful — in most cases — than the original, undried food. (Frozen and canned edibles, on the other hand, are — if anything — less tasty than their fresh or dried equivalents.)

3. It costs little or nothing to dry foods, whereas freezing and canning both require a potentially large initial investment in equipment.

4. Dried goods can be stored in a smaller space than either frozen, canned, or fresh foods. (Twenty pounds of tomatoes, for instance, will — when canned — fill eleven one-quart jars. The same quantity of tomatoes dried weighs a little more than a pound and occupies a single No. 10 can.)

5. Dried foods — when kept dry — remain edible virtually forever.

If these aren't powerful enough reasons for you to begin thinking about drying your own foods at home, consider this: By buying fruits and vegetables in bulk when they're in season (and thus lowest in price) — then dehydrating them for later use — you can enjoy your favorite eats year round, in season or out, for just a fraction of what you'd pay on a buy-as-you-eat basis. If nothing else, food drying is a great way to reconstitute your shrinking food dollar!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/1977-07-01/Make-Your-Food-Dollar-Go-Further.aspx

Another good article on Drying/Dehydrating can be found in the current issue of Countryside.

http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues/92/92-4/dry_it_youll_like_it.html






:hi:

[wildeyed]

1. Here is a solar dryer I made yesterday based on a design mentioned in one of the articles you posted

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x9732

:)

[bvar22]

2. Very Cool.

I think this is the link you meant to post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x9735

A Solar Food Dehydrator would be the ultimate in sustainability.

*Energy Input = 0

*Toxic emmissions = 0

*Carbon Footprint = 0

*Per Cent of income handed over to Corporate Criminals = 0

Those numbers make me smile.

[wildeyed]

3. Oops, wrong link, thanks!

Yes the solar dryer is very cool. I like my electric kitchen gadgets, but someday, when the energy runs out, I will know how to do stuff for myself the old timey way :)

Plus this one was free since it was mostly scavenged parts. Here is another quick and dirty way to do it. Just put the baking rack in and cover with some tinfoil and bug netting, and good to go.



For small time home gardeners, this is not a bad way to do it. Quick and easy way to preserve small surpluses, and no money invested upfront.