To succeed in your home food storage program you need to learn about food storage techniques. These methods will allow you to store your own foods for emergency purposes.
Pressure canning is one of the popular ways of preserving foods. To be able to pressure can your food you need to have a pressure canner. For this method you should use clean and sterilized jars only. There should not be any cracks in them. Your pressure canner should be tested each year as most manufacturers suggest. If your canner has been dropped, you should not use it anymore. There might be some very small crack and this may lead to explosion. You must always use your pressure canner according to the instructions.
Water bath canning is another common method of food storage. This method is commonly used to can foods that are rich with acids. Tomatoes, pickles, jams and some fruits could be successfully canned using water bath canning. Peel the fruits and cut them into slices. If you want to avoid darkening, use some ascorbic acid or lemon juice. A solution of vinegar, salt and water also works well for this purpose. If you want to make a jam, you will need to crush fruits and add a sweetener. Foods need to be boiled with some amount of vinegar in the water. Some spices could also be added. If you want to can tomatoes, you could peel them and cut in half. Tomatoes contain a lot of natural acids, but you should add a tablespoon of salt to each jar.
Salting is also a good method of food storage. Dry salting should be made like this: boil the vegetables for 10 minutes. Then add one cup of salt to four cups of vegetables. Now you could pack them into containers and cover with cheese cloth. Containers should be kept in a cool and dry place for about a month. If there is any foam on top, you will have to remove it.
Drying is one of the easiest ways of preserving food products. First of all you need to disable enzymes that could cause some changes in vegetables after they are dried. For this purpose you should keep them in boiling water or stem for several minutes. If you want to dry fruits, they should be sliced and treated with lemon juice or other acid to prevent darkening. Alternatively you could put them into cold water and add some salt and vinegar to it. Then fruits are ready to be dried. You could heat them to dry or just let them dry naturally. Both options are possible. However, it is considered that more vitamins are left in fruits if they are not exposed to high temperatures.
This planet gets “hot” – it’s time to be prepared. Learn more about food storage – this info can save your life and the lives of other people you care about. Visit this food storage website for interesting info in the food storage niche.
