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Eating a ripe piece of fruit can sometimes turn into a sticky situation. Even though the process can often result in a mess, fruit just wouldn’t be the same without tasty juices. Or would it? Explore the process of dehydration and find out how to prep your favorite goods to become food storage favorites.

Dehydration is a simple process. Take an apple, suck all the water out of it, and what are you left with? A dehydrated apple. Well, that might not be the exact technique, but it highlights the basics of the method. Water is a key instrument in the aging and deterioration of food mater, remove it and preserve your product for up to a year. Our plastic bags and tins make for great dehydrated food packaging options. Pack the goods up, throw them in your food storage and rest easy knowing you have access to preserved fruits and veggies at your fingertips.

Dehydration is not a precise art. There are many ways to dry food. With the help of the sun some people dry product in the back of their car, others use household ovens, the most modern, competent and nutrient rich method comes from the use of an electric dehydrator appliance.

Slice fruits and vegetables similarly when preparing to dehydrate the food, this practice allows for more even drying. If you’re concerned about preserving color and potent flavors you should treat your fruit before drying it. Treatments range from acid based solutions, which limit bacteria commonly found on fruit and sweeter dips which aim to maintain original color. Vegetables can be pretreated through blanching, where they are either boiled in water or heated over steam, halting the enzymes from continuing the decomposing process.

Now for the tricky part, how long does the food need to dry? This is a loaded question with many implications. The type of food and its original level of water presence come into play along with surrounding air movement and humidity factors. As a rule of thumb, expect to dry fruit from 6 to 36 hours and vegetables anywhere from 3 to 16 hours. The key to determining whether the food has been fully dried is based on consistency. Fruit should be pliable, your bananas shouldn’t be soft, but you don’t want to break your teeth on them while snacking either. When checking out your veggies remember snap peas, as these units should snap when broken.

Chances are you’ll find a few dehydrated pieces with more moisture retention than the rest. Reduce the chance of a mold outbreak by gathering the dried fruit together in a small container and placing the not so dry pieces in their midst. This practice is called conditioning, actively distributing particle moisture throughout all the fruit or vegetable units.

Storage essentials and techniques for dehydrated products are not as stringent as canning guidelines. Aside from keeping your food in a dark, cool and dry place the additional details depend on your preference. We recommend keeping dried product in our plastic bags, which allow for easy and convenient usage. Add another layer of security by stowing your bagged food in one of our metal tins. This packaging set up not only provides a dark environment for the supply but keeps your food protected against possible insect infestation.

You can increase your food storage stockpile every day. Next time you are about to toss your leftover food remember the benefits of dehydrating. It’s important to use food within a year of dehydrating, so stock up on our plastic bags and tins to help support your food storage rotation.

Kayla Holman’s article encourages making use of plastic bags to house your dehydrated food storage supply.

Tags: Fast Food, food storage, plastic, plastic bags, storing food