5 Popular Ways to Preserve Food

Keeping your food stock consumable is the best way to save money and maintain the foodstuff for future needs. There are ways to preserve the food you can in your home.

Some popular methods are freeze-drying, dehydrating, fermenting, salting, and vacuum packaging using efficient equipment like this Cryovac Machine here. Which one best depends on your needs and what kind of food you want to keep.

Why The Need to Preserve Food?

There are reasons why you need to keep your food stock still fresh for future use. One of them is to save money. You can stay away from the food store much longer since you still have all you need at home.

It also can have a good impact on your health because you are the one who controls your food. You are the one who does all the preserving food processes from A to Z.

The bottom line is it will help you save money, stock up, and process foodstuff under your monitoring.

5 Popular Ways to Preserve Food

There are some options you can do on how to preserve food. Some are old yet effective methods and some others are quite new. Nevertheless, any method you pick will help you avoid going to the fresh market more often. You can sit comfortably at home, relax, and just open all the stock you need.

Here are the five best ways to preserve the food you can.

1. Freeze-Drying

Freeze-drying is one method to maintain your food by dehydrating it in a low-temperature condition. The process is done by freezing the food and after that removing the ice and turning it into vapor.

You can freeze-dry by yourself using a freezer which will take several weeks. Another way to do it is using dry ice since it can be used to freeze food fast.

One other choice is called Empire Freezing & Drying to preserve your food. The company provides Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) to make it easier for you to distribute your food stock while keeping it fresh.

Food items that can be preserved using this method are:

• Tea
• Grains
• Smoothies
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Pet food

2. Dehydrating

Food dehydration has been done for decades, not to mention from early on in ancient times. It is one of the oldest ways of preserving food. In those days, people from the Middle East and Asia used the sun to dry their stock.

In today’s world, you can use commercial electric dehydrators or ovens. But there are choices to do it just like our ancestors by air drying or hanging it in a good ventilated and dry place.

Food that is good to preserve using dehydration are:

• Vegetables
• Fruits
• Meat
• Fish

3. Fermenting

Another ancient method to preserve food is fermenting. It has been done for thousands of years and you can do it too! The goal is to create a chemical reaction where sugars inside turn into lactic acid. This will prevent harmful bacteria from growing. Eventually, your stock will be able to keep for a longer basis.

The process itself is called Lacto-fermentation. The benefit of using this method is to boost vitamin and enzyme levels. This way, it will have a good impact on your health. Some examples of the finished products of fermentation are cheese, kimchi, kombucha, and yogurt.

Food categories you can preserve by fermenting are:

• Vegetables
• Herb
• Spices

4. Salting

Before modern food processing existed, people used to preserve food using salt. The sodium and chloride inside can decrease the water amount on food. Another reason why salting is one of the best ways to preserve food is it can give an osmotic shock to microbes.

Those cells will lose their liquid and the ability to grow or even die. When this happens, your food can stay longer for future consumption. This method is quite easy to apply by yourself. The method itself is common practice to make corned beef, bacon, and jellies.

You can apply the salting preserving method for this food below:

• Meat
• Fruits
• Vegetables

5. Vacuum Packaging

Vacuum packaging is one way to preserve your food stock by removing air before sealing the pack. This technique can prevent bacteria since it needs oxygen to live.

Those bacteria will not grow and spoil your stock if you vacuum the air from the packaging. This makes it hard to damage your items since the packaging material will be in tight contact with your food allowing zero air pockets inside.

There are commercial vacuum machines for domestic use available in the nearest household store. Usually, these tools contain a pump and nozzle to pull the air. It will be a great idea to have one in your house. The vacuum machine can help you preserve food at home and also it can save your stock when you must go traveling.

Your stock will last 1 up to 2 weeks if you put it inside a cooler or refrigerator. The interval will increase if you put your vacuumed food in a freezer for up to 1 to 3 years.

Vacuum packing is a great way to preserve food as follows:

• Fish
• Vegetables
• Fruits
• Meat
• Chicken and other poultry

Summary

There are ways to preserve the food you can at home. From ancient times and also new ones. You can pick any method according to your situation. Some professionals can help you to prevent spoiling. You can save money and keep what you need for future consumption.