The Method of Freeze-Drying
Freeze-drying is a intricate procedure of preserving new or currently-cooked foodstuff by taking away up to ninety eight% of the food’s moisture, leaving intact the food’s texture, flavor, aroma and dietary value.
The procedure calls for that the refreshing or cooked foods be rapidly frozen at temperatures as lower as -50°C. The frozen foodstuff is then positioned into a vacuum chamber. This vacuum chamber lowers the force, and raises the temperature to just about 0°C.
At this certain temperature and strain, the ice crystals in the foodstuff evaporate into water vapor, bypassing water’s liquid sort, through a procedure named sublimation.
This procedure preserves the cell composition and dietary content of the food, resulting in a item that, when rehydrated, really carefully resembles the original foodstuff.
The procedure also helps prevent the h2o from being reabsorbed by the meals and thus decreases its weight drastically.
Most foods products such as fruits, greens and meats are well-suited to freeze-drying, and can be utilized for lengthy-time period food storage and preservation.
The Approach of Dehydration
Dehydrating food is a foods preservation approach which has been used for centuries. Native People in america dehydrated their buffalo kills in their looking camps to make it less complicated to transportation. Pemmican (a dehydrated concoction of buffalo meat combined with body fat and berries) was a staple of several of the nomadic North American tribes. This minimal-warmth dehydration approach concerned both air drying (with nearby campfires), or solar drying strips of meat on drying racks.
Dehydrators are a present day strategy for slowly and gradually getting rid of the dampness from food with no truly cooking it. A downside of dehydration is the limited volume of foodstuff which can be dried at 1 time. The optimistic aspect of dehydration is that this strategy of processing for foodstuff storage can be easily completed at residence.
How Do These Two Techniques Affect the Foods?
Freeze-dried foods protect much of the unique color, shape, aroma and freshness of fruits, greens and meats. Freeze-dried food does not usually contain additives or preservatives, so it stays correct to its first sort. And the search, texture and flavor of the foodstuff continues to be soon after re-hydration.
In contrast to lower-warmth dehydration, freeze-drying enables for the preservation of pre-cooked foods, which includes recipes this kind of as soups, stews, stroganoff, and the like. An evident advantage is that since the food was geared up in its entirety prior to freeze-drying, all you want to do is merely include water, then heat for a number of minutes in purchase to generate luxurious meals.
Rehydrating freeze-dried food takes just a number of minutes, merely by introducing boiling h2o. Some foods, like several fruits and vegetables, require no re-hydration ahead of ingesting.
Dehydrated foods shrink in the course of processing as the dampness is taken out. So the foods product itself is noticeably smaller sized than its authentic dimension.
The re-hydration time of dehydrated meals requires a bit longer than freeze-dried, but it stills preferences like the authentic sort of the foodstuff. Some dehydrated foodstuff have included elements to boost flavors or aid in preservation. As with freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, dehydrated fruits and vegetables can be eaten with out any re-hydration.
The two methods of foods preservation enhance the prolonged-term storage daily life of foods. Most commercially made freeze-dried and dehydrated foods have a shelf existence of fifteen to twenty many years, if appropriately packaged and stored in a great, dry surroundings.
In addition to their being a dependable source of food in an crisis or lengthy-time period survival scenario, due to the fact of their light-weight fat and simplicity of portability, these food items are also fantastic for taking on tenting, hiking and looking journeys. They are also a clever selection to keep in an unexpected emergency street-aspect package for the automobile, or in your bug out bag.
If you select to keep these meals in your automobile as element of an crisis package, please keep in mind to rotate them periodically. Temperatures in a automobile can attain extremes, equally sizzling and cold. High warmth as well as constant temperature fluctuations contribute to faster degradation of each dehydrated and freeze-dried foods.
Which Variety is Better for Consumption?
Absolutely everyone is various, and every person has their own private preferences and tastes. With that in thoughts, there are a couple of factors to consider ahead of generating a selection amongst freeze-dried or dehydrated foodstuff.
House-developed fruits and vegetables are greater preserved by means of dehydration, given that the average man or woman can’t manage the expensive equipment used in freeze-drying.
cheesecake utilized in daily cooking and meal preparing must possibly be freeze-dried. This permits the foodstuff to be quickly re-hydrated as it is cooked prior to serving. If accessibility and portability are crucial, than possibly kind of preserved foodstuff should satisfy those distinct demands. When once again, it is a issue of individual preferences.
In a nutshell, both dehydrated and freeze-dried foods are outstanding options for long-phrase foods storage, as well as for daily use or for hiking, camping, etc. They each provide gentle-weight, transportable, hassle-free foodstuff. The principal variation is that freeze-dried food items are inclined to far better preserve the shape, texture and flavors of the original meals.
Most men and women will discover that a mixture will operate very best for their requirements. One-merchandise foodstuff these kinds of as vegetables, potatoes, and other staples and grains are nicely-suited to reduced-heat dehydration. Freeze-drying is much more appropriate for meats and fruits (whose texture can be preserved), and for pre-cooked meals with a variety of components this kind of as soups, stews and sauces.