I have to admit that when we started our homesteading journey, I knew absolutely nothing about preserving food or food preservation items!
Of course, I had heard of people canning and dehydrating before and I had frozen meat in my back freezer but I didn’t know what items you needed to have on hand or what process to follow. After watching other homesteaders online, I began to realize there were so many incredible ways to preserve your food!
While our family is still not well versed in all the preserving methods, we have dabbled in nearly all of them. There is still so much to learn and discover, and I love these books to help me along the way.
No matter where you live and what season of life you are in, you can begin preserving your food and becoming prepared for the future. And these food preservation items will help you do just that!
And the best part about preserving is the versatility it offers. Not one of the food preservation items is the best or the only one you should have. Each preserving method has different pros and cons that should be evaluated.
Basically, don’t put all your eggs in one basket! You don’t have to and you shouldn’t want to.
Let’s check them out…
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Let’s start with the most simple and easy way to preserve food, and that’s with a freezer! Most people have a freezer in their home and many people have a second chest freezer or two in their basement or garage.
One amazing benefit to a freezer is that it is fairly cheap, easy, and multifunctional. Almost anything can be frozen safely for future use! You can find cheap freezers for free often online or at a fairly low cost. You can also buy them brand new and they come in many sizes.
One downside to a freezer is that it requires electricity to preserve your food. If the power goes out and your freezer can’t stay cold, all the food you have frozen for later use with thaw and spoil.
I think everyone should have a freezer but consider buying a generator with it like this one. That way if the power goes out, you can keep your food cold.
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To water bath can low acid foods like pickles, jams, jellies, and fruit you will need a large stock pot with a rack, specific utensils, jars with lids and bands, and of course a stove and the ingredients to go with it.
I was so nervous to can my first items in a water-bath canner. I had never been taught how and only seen videos online so it felt like a huge mountain to climb. However, once I did it, it seemed so easy and simple that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it sooner!
I used this book to practice canning and follow safe canning methods.
Water-bath canning preserves items for a couple of years, but it does often kill some of the nutrients in the boiling process. It is cheap to get started but can be time-consuming as well.
Once you start canning your own jam, jelly, pickles, and salsa, you will never want to go back to store-bought products. I can say from experience.
After we had a freezer and then a water-bath canner, the next form of preservation we decided to try was freeze drying! This is an extremely unique one of the food preservation items to own.
Most people confuse it with dehydrating. And while they do seem to have similarities, they are completely different.
A freeze dryer is a machine you can have in your house or garage that looks like a small chamber inside of a box, about the size of a dishwasher. It freezes the food items and then sucks all the moisture out. To reconstitute the food items just add moisture back in with water or something similar like broth.
It can preserve food for up to 25 years and makes items shelf-stable, does not require electricity, and has as much space as a freezer would. However, a freeze dryer is an expensive investment and also requires mylar bags or jars for storage, oxygen absorbers, an impulse sealer or vacuum sealer, and oil if you have an oil pump.
We love the versatility freeze drying offers because you can preserve almost anything with it! It is my favorite out of the food preservation items to own.
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A dehydrator also takes moisture out of the food but not as much as a freeze dryer so the food does not last as long and is usually not reconstituted. Instead, it is usually enjoyed in its dehydrated state.
It also can’t preserve meat and dairy like a freeze dryer can. It can create beef jerky, however. The advantage of a dehydrator is that it costs much less than a freeze dryer and still has a wide range of options.
It also takes up a lot less space, doesn’t take as long, isn’t as loud, and can sit on your countertop. You also don’t need as much packaging to store the store items, since they don’t store for as long.
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A bit more expensive than a water bath canner is a pressure canner. This item is for low-acid foods such as meat and vegetables, including tomatoes. When I think of canning apart from jam and jelly, this is what I think of!
I still have yet to pressure can but I know I will love it because I quite enjoy my pressure cooker for making meals at home. Pressure canning does take time and energy, but once the items are on the shelf, they are shelf stable and very convenient to grab for meals.
Don’t forget that you need the same sort of canning utensils for pressure canning too.
Fermenting food like vegetables is a wonderful way to preserve the harvest because it creates good bacteria for your body. Your gut needs this good bacteria to thrive and keep your body healthy. And, at the same time, you are keeping your food safe.
To begin fermenting you will need mason jars and fermentation weights!
For the items we can’t freeze dry, like oats, wheat, flour, nuts, sugar, and dry beans, we store them in five-gallon buckets in a cooler area of our house for long-term storage.
We are still working on setting up the ideal root cellar space for our family, but when we do, we will also store our root vegetables and apples there as well.
A root cellar is an ideal setup. That can look different for everyone – a basement, a storage room, a hole in the ground. You want it to be around 45 degrees F consistently and dark, without windows.
Related Post: The 5 Best Beginner Gardening Books Written By Experts On YouTube
Salt curing is another wonderful preservation method, but I haven’t tried it myself yet! I always keep a five-gallon bucket of Redmond Real Salt on hand in case the opportunity arrives soon.
You can preserve herbs not only in salt but also in sweet sugar syrups. High-quality sugar is necessary to have on hand for these.
Alcohol also removes water to preserve items. This includes making your own extracts like lavender, vanilla, and lemon. Consider having some on hand for mild preserving.
Remember when you are preserving food, it has to be done properly, following safe and proven techniques otherwise there is a risk for botulism and other food-born illnesses.
Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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