The Method of Freeze-Drying
Freeze-drying is a complicated process of preserving refreshing or presently-cooked meals by eliminating up to 98% of the food’s dampness, leaving intact the food’s texture, taste, aroma and nutritional worth.
The method requires that the refreshing or cooked meals be rapidly frozen at temperatures as lower as -50°C. The frozen foodstuff is then placed into a vacuum chamber. This vacuum chamber lowers the strain, and raises the temperature to just about 0°C.
At this specific temperature and stress, the ice crystals in the meals evaporate into water vapor, bypassing water’s liquid form, through a method named sublimation.
This process preserves the mobile structure and dietary content material of the food, resulting in a product that, when rehydrated, very closely resembles the first foodstuff.
The process also prevents the drinking water from getting reabsorbed by the food and as a result decreases its fat significantly.
Most foodstuff things such as fruits, greens and meats are nicely-suited to freeze-drying, and can be utilized for long-time period food storage and preservation.
The Approach of Dehydration
Dehydrating foods is a meals preservation technique which has been used for centuries. Indigenous Individuals dehydrated their buffalo kills in their hunting camps to make it less complicated to transportation. Pemmican (a dehydrated concoction of buffalo meat blended with unwanted fat and berries) was a staple of many of the nomadic North American tribes. This reduced-warmth dehydration approach concerned both air drying (with close by campfires), or sunshine drying strips of meat on drying racks.
Dehydrators are a contemporary method for slowly removing the humidity from foods without having in fact cooking it. A drawback of dehydration is the restricted sum of meals which can be dried at one time. The optimistic aspect of dehydration is that this strategy of processing for foods storage can be very easily accomplished at property.
How Do These Two Approaches Impact the Food?
Freeze-dried meals preserve much of the unique color, condition, aroma and freshness of fruits, vegetables and meats. Freeze-dried foodstuff does not typically include additives or preservatives, so it remains correct to its first form. And the appear, texture and taste of the meals remains soon after re-hydration.
In contrast to lower-warmth dehydration, freeze-drying allows for the preservation of pre-cooked foods, like recipes this sort of as soups, stews, stroganoff, and the like. An apparent benefit is that because the meal was well prepared in its entirety prior to freeze-drying, all you need to do is merely insert h2o, then heat for a number of minutes in order to create luxurious foods.
Rehydrating freeze-dried foodstuff requires just a few minutes, simply by incorporating boiling h2o. Some food items, like a lot of fruits and veggies, want no re-hydration before taking in.
Dehydrated food items shrink for the duration of processing as the moisture is taken off. So the foodstuff merchandise alone is substantially smaller than its unique dimension.
The re-hydration time of dehydrated food items takes a bit longer than freeze-dried, but it stills tastes like the original type of the foods. Some dehydrated foodstuff contain added elements to enhance flavors or support in preservation. As with freeze-dried fruits and greens, dehydrated fruits and vegetables can be eaten without having any re-hydration.
Each methods of foodstuff preservation boost the extended-time period storage lifestyle of foods. water crisis Most commercially made freeze-dried and dehydrated foodstuff have a shelf lifestyle of fifteen to twenty a long time, if properly packaged and saved in a cool, dry atmosphere.
In addition to their getting a dependable resource of foods in an unexpected emergency or prolonged-expression survival state of affairs, due to the fact of their mild weight and ease of portability, these food items are also excellent for having on camping, hiking and looking excursions. They are also a smart choice to keep in an emergency street-facet package for the auto, or in your bug out bag.
If you pick to hold these food items in your car as component of an unexpected emergency kit, please keep in mind to rotate them periodically. Temperatures in a auto can attain extremes, equally hot and chilly. High warmth as nicely as continuous temperature fluctuations add to faster degradation of each dehydrated and freeze-dried meals.
Which Variety is Much better for Use?
Every person is different, and every particular person has their own private tastes and tastes. With that in brain, there are a number of issues to take into account just before generating a choice between freeze-dried or dehydrated food.
House-grown fruits and greens are greater preserved via dehydration, since the common person are not able to manage the pricey equipment used in freeze-drying.
Foods employed in daily cooking and meal preparation should probably be freeze-dried. This permits the food to be speedily re-hydrated as it is cooked prior to serving. If accessibility and portability are crucial, than either type of preserved foods need to fulfill people distinct demands. Once again, it really is a issue of private preferences.
In a nutshell, both dehydrated and freeze-dried foods are excellent choices for extended-expression foodstuff storage, as nicely as for every day use or for climbing, camping, and so on. They equally provide light-weight-bodyweight, moveable, practical food items. The principal variation is that freeze-dried meals have a tendency to greater maintain the condition, texture and flavors of the original food.
Most folks will discover that a mixture will operate very best for their demands. One-item foods this kind of as greens, potatoes, and other staples and grains are well-suited to lower-heat dehydration. Freeze-drying is far more proper for meats and fruits (whose texture can be preserved), and for pre-cooked meals with a assortment of elements this sort of as soups, stews and sauces.