dehydrated foods?

[Mamabear17]

I'm looking into making my own dehydrated foods,
I'm a chief so I'm sure I can pull it off, I just don't want to jump into it blind.
Any advice would be great.
IE foods to stay away from, shelf life, etc...

[Wil]

My favorite simple food is spaghetti and sauce, the sauce right out of the bottle onto the drier fruit letter trays and the cooked spaghetti dried separately. Lots of people use angel hair and just dry the sauce but I like the regular. I add some freeze-dried beef pellets to the sauce or better yet some dehydrated cooked ground beef.

I like seafood so I dry fresh chopped clams as is for a variety of dry mixes. Shrimp I boil with lots of salt and slice in thirds lengthwise before drying. You can dry them whole and they keep reasonably well but they take forever to reconstitute.

[Rocket Jones]

Trailcooking.com

BackpackingChef.com

[plexusbritt]

There are a lot of videos and such on youtube that are great.

I prefer to keep some big freezer bags of different things separate so that when I do want to go, I can just mix up my meals. I keep "gravel" (ground beef), chicken, three pepper blend, jalopenos, mushrooms, and fruit on hand. that way, when I am ready to go, I just throw something together into ramen or knorr sides. Not real fancy but, it works and I'm usually too tired to care if it is gourmet or not.

[Diamondlil]

The biggest thing is when you dehydrate your meats and fowl, and need them to keep for an extended time, be sure to throw it into the freezer until you're ready to incorporate it into your meals.


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[Hosh]

Some common "don'ts" are eggs, dairy and anything with high fat content. Best to purchase from professional companies and add to your recipes.

Canned chicken re-hydrates better than baked or pan fried. It's pressure cooked and isn't as tough.

I store finished meals in a mason jar, vacuum sealed in a freezer. This extends shelf life and allows me to portion out individual meals prior to a trip. Meals sealed in vacuum bags tend to leak because sharp pasta or rice punctures the bag.

Rectangular dehydrators tend to work better than circular ones, but usually are 3 to 4x the cost.

Freezer bag cooking ,FBC, uses the least amount of fuel when re-hydrating.

Babelfish5 on youtube has great recipes and useful comments on techniques. He typically cooks finished meals, all ingredients combined, and then dehydrates. I think this is more flavorful than combining separate ingredients, especially if a sauce is involved.

[Slosteppin]

I make soup about once a week during the winter. I dehydrate the remainder after one or two meals. I have a five shelf Excaliber Dehydrater that is just right for my soup leftovers. I'm primarily vegetarian and it was hard to find a variety of vegetarian freeze dried meals. Re-hydrating my dehydrated soups takes a little longer than freeze dried but I think it is much healthier without all the chemical preservatives.

[T.Bates]

I make soup about once a week during the winter. I dehydrate the remainder after one or two meals. I have a five shelf Excaliber Dehydrater that is just right for my soup leftovers. I'm primarily vegetarian and it was hard to find a variety of vegetarian freeze dried meals. Re-hydrating my dehydrated soups takes a little longer than freeze dried but I think it is much healthier without all the chemical preservatives.

What chemical preservatives do they put in freeze-dried food? I thought it was just an extremely cold vacuum chamber that science took place in to preserve the food. Some kind of gas process that removed all the water and air from the food

[lyagooshka]

What chemical preservatives do they put in freeze-dried food?

The actually don't.
Freeze dried is exactly that.
The one thing that they may do (MREs in the military are an example) is add nitrogen.
Now that might sound scary, but when you remember that 80% of what you breathe is N, it's not so bad.
Plus, it can extend shelf life pretty much indefinitely.
But even this is used on 'wet' meals, not 'bone dry'.
Usually, the chemicals you see listed on a package are for flavor, not preservation.

If the image below comes through, look at the ingredients.
About all that you could consider "chemicals" are sodium phosphate (a thickener, completely non-toxic, and only issue that might arise is if you ingest too much, it is used as 'bowel prep', so have your shovel ready), guar gum (comes from a bean, so a plant), carob bean gum (also a plant, used as a thickener) and maltodextrin (a modified starch that is easily absorbed by the body in the form of glucose).


MH_BS_Nutrition.jpg


Now, I am not saying "don't make your own".
On the contrary, I am all for it.
But when I can get 29 bags of Mountain House for $69 on Amazon Prime ($2.38 a bag, and it weighs 4 oz each), I just don't want to spend the time or energy.
Plus, I could never achieve the level of sterility at home that they can in their plant.
On the other hand, trail mix, granola, jerky, dried fruit, etc., I make all those myself.

Hope it helps.

Alex

[T.Bates]

I didnt think they did but slosteppin said " Re-hydrating my dehydrated soups takes a little longer than freeze dried but I think it is much healthier without all the chemical preservatives. " isnt freeze dried more nutritious then dehydrating?

[lyagooshka]

I think it was just a mis-statement from slosteppin (though I don't want to speak for someone else, so if I am mistaken, I apologize).
I think what was meant was "chemicals" or "additives" instead of "preservatives".
Point is, when reading a food label, many things that sound 'scary' are actually perfectly safe, while things that sound benign are actually not-so-much.

For example, would you give your kids Docosahexaenoic acid?
What if I called it by its more common name, DHA?

How about Monosodium glutamate, or MSG as it's more commonly referred to?
You don't want that, right?
But if you don't, you should stop eating mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes and many other fruits and vegetables as it is naturally occurring in them.

Now how about "Natural Flavoring"?
Sounds good, right?
I mean, it's natural, right?
Well, if you're eating something that tastes like vanilla but 'vanilla" in not in the ingredients (bur "Natural Flavoring" is), you might have yourself some Castoreum.
It is 100% natural, and comes from the anal sack of a beaver.
YUM!
(I'd love to know who was the first person to discover that a beaver's butt tastes like vanilla, and especially HOW.)

Anyway, point is, many of the things we find listed under their chemical names may sound bad, but they are not.
And freeze-drying or dehydrating are some of the safest ways to preserve food (though Pemmican is AWESOME and lasts a good deal).
They differ very little.
If you want convenience, go for the store-bought stuff.
If you really are against those additives (not preservatives), then make your own.
By no means am I telling you one is better than the other, nor am I trying to sell anyone anything.
I just want to clear the air a bit when it comes to some of these labels and what people think of the ingredients on them.

Hope it makes sense.

Alex

[TNshadetree]

My go to dehydrated meal is a spaghetti sauce based on Mirepoix or Italian Battuto. A little olice oil, then throw in 2 parts onion, 1 part celery, 1 part carrot diced small. Cook down until getting tender. Throw in garlic a splash of red wine, Italian seasoning, then simmer in broth for a long while. Then add 2 cans of tomato paste and cook down until thick.

I use parchment paper in my dehydrator and spoon a tablespoon or so onto small squares. I drop them on the counter a few times and it spreads out and will dehydrate into a leather. Throw that into a quart zip lock with some Ramen noodles. I'll also take along a small bag of dehydrated ****akes that I'll add some water to at lunch break. The easiest meat to add is to just slice up some hard beef stick. A little pack of parmesan and olive oil and you're in heaven.

[TNshadetree]

I guess the sever didn't like me not including enough "i's" in Shiitake mushrooms.

[Odd Man Out]

I should get into this. The rabbits have eaten most everything in my garden except my tomatoes, thyme, zucchini, and basil. I am going to have a boat load of tomatoes pretty soon, so I should be making lots of pasta sauce. Can I dehydrate in a regular oven?

[buckeye49]

[QUOTE=lyagooshk


Now, I am not saying "don't make your own".
On the contrary, I am all for it.
But when I can get 29 bags of Mountain House for $69 on Amazon Prime ($2.38 a bag, and it weighs 4 oz each), I just don't want to spend the time or energy.
Plus, I could never achieve the level of sterility at home that they can in their plant.
On the other hand, trail mix, granola, jerky, dried fruit, etc., I make all those myself.

Hope it helps.

Alex[/QUOTE]


Can you provide a link? I can't find this deal anywhere on Amazon.

[buckeye49]

Okay, I found it. The $69 price is actually for 29 servings in 12 pouches. Still a decent deal.

[Capt. America]

"But when I can get 29 bags of Mountain House for $69 on Amazon Prime ($2.38 a bag, and it weighs 4 oz each), I just don't want to spend the time or energy.
Plus, I could never achieve the level of sterility at home that they can in their plant.
On the other hand, trail mix, granola, jerky, dried fruit, etc., I make all those myself."

Alex, Are the MH meals in the containers loose or in pouches? If loose do you repackage in 4oz servings? or do you buy 4oz servings in pouches for $2.38?

[RangerZ]

This is an unsolicited endorsement, I'm neither an actor nor do I play one on television.

Babelfish5's beef stroganoff (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKHnmywssbM) is the best meal that I've ever rehydrated in the woods. Tasty, hearty, etc. The sour cream powder really adds to the taste.

I made 5 portions since I have 5 trays in my dehydrator. I don't know what the portion weight was but it was (almost) too much to eat. (I mean, I couldn't face the pudding that I was going to have for desert; so, I ate it with breakfast.) I'm going to redivide the remaining 4 portions into 5 for the next times.

I'm going to make his jambalaya next. His chili mac is good, too.

[Hosh]

This is an unsolicited endorsement, I'm neither an actor nor do I play one on television.

Babelfish5's beef stroganoff (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKHnmywssbM) is the best meal that I've ever rehydrated in the woods. Tasty, hearty, etc. The sour cream powder really adds to the taste.
.

+1 and don't forget to add powdered butter. He also does a nice tuna casserole and chicken & rice. We like the SW omelet as a reprieve from oatmeal.

I generally follow his recipes, but tend to over spice prior to dehydration. The nice thing about DIY is I can tailor to my taste and the sodium content is less.

[Vegan Packer]

I make pretty much everything from scratch, except for things like bread products. I often substitute coconut cream for oil, since oil won't dehydrate.

I have a bunch of recipes on my YouTube Channel, "Vegan Packer," and I will be adding more. You might want to take a look at those. Even non-vegans will enjoy them.