Lack of access to fresh foods – whether due to a natural calamity or other grave situations that force you to stay home – can be a major dilemma. After all, food is a basic need, no matter what the circumstances may be. It serves as your fuel to pull through being sheltered during a fast-spreading pandemic, stranded inside because of hurricanes, and other dire situations.
However, food becomes even more difficult to procure during difficult times. One way to ensure a steady supply of nourishment is to store more food for the future. That said, you must find ways to ensure that the products you stockpile are safe to eat (or drink), even if left untouched for a long time.
You see, food has a limited shelf life and will only be edible for so long. This means that you must act to preserve food to keep it from deteriorating.
Fortunately, a range of preservation methods has been passed down for generations, most of which have been successfully used for decades. Here, you will learn five ways to preserve food in the long term in case you need to stay home for an extended period:
Freezing
Frozen meat, frozen drinks, even frozen cakes! Almost any kind of food or beverage can be frozen. And it’s a good thing too because freezing is one of the easiest ways to preserve food.
When done correctly, freezing can help keep food viable for the next few weeks. This is because very low temperatures help prevent bacterial growth that causes food to deteriorate too quickly.
To make sure you do it properly, here are some tips you must remember when freezing food:
- Make sure the freezer temperature is set between -18 degrees and -22 degrees Celsius.
- Keep food in freezer bags or airtight containers before putting inside the freezer. This is crucial for meat to avoid freezer burn that can leave it inedible.
- Never freeze food beyond their “best before” date.
- Avoid refreezing defrosted food to prevent bacteria growth in-between thawing. Either use it right away or keep it in the fridge for a maximum of 24 hours.
- Don’t forget to label food with the date of freezing for future reference. This can help you determine whether an item is still okay for consumption.
Chilling
Like freezing, refrigerating also helps keep your spoils from groceries, meat suppliers, and even your own backyard edible for longer. In fact, it is the recommended method of storage and preservation for many food products as it requires minimal preparation (if it’s not already done for you).
Fridges help maintain the quality of food with the cold, slowing bacterial growth that causes spoilage. Food items can last for days or even weeks before their taste and quality changes when chilled, but this will depend on the type of food in question.
To make sure that chilled foods remain safe to eat, keep the fridge’s temperature at 1 to 4 degrees Celsius. If possible, use separate refrigerators for ready-to-eat and raw food to reduce the risk of cross-contamination. If this is impractical, make sure that the food items are in separate sections, with ready-to-eat food above raw items at all times.
Never overload the fridge or place food in a way that could cover the cooling unit. Make sure that there’s enough room for air circulation.
Before chilling canned goods that have been opened, put them in different containers to prevent metal from transferring and affecting the taste of the food. This also applies to canned beverages.
Drying
Drying is a traditional way of preserving food. Although it has been around for ages, many people still use it today, especially for fruits, salted meats and fish.
Because of its high sugar and acid content, fruits can be dried outdoors, under the sun. A hot and dry-weathered day works best for drying, so long as the temperature is at least 29.5 degrees Celsius and humidity is below 60 percent.
However, vegetables and meats are not recommended for sun drying. Meats, in particular, can be contaminated with bacteria when exposed to the sun for extended periods of time, not to mention it doesn’t have sufficient sugar and acid content to complete the process.
When drying food, remember to bring them inside at night to prevent moisture condensation. Then, bring them out again the next warm and sunny day.
If you have screens and/or racks, use them on the food during the drying process, with one used for shelving while the other serves as a cover. A pair of these can help avoid issues with birds and insects.
Fermentation
Food fermentation is good for preserving food and enhancing its nutritional value and flavor. Some meat can be preserved using this process, like in the case of pepperoni and salami. However, most people prefer to ferment fruits and vegetables to make delicacies like kimchi and sauerkraut.
When preparing for fermentation, you can choose among the following methods:
- Grating
- Shredding
- Chopping
- Slicing
- Leaving whole
While the preparation method is a personal choice, some vegetables or fruits are better fermented when left whole, while others need to be grated or shredded for best results.
Salting
Salt has plenty of uses in the kitchen, and that includes preserving food. In fact, salt is considered a key ingredient necessary when fermenting vegetables.
Salt draws water out and prevents the growth of bacteria. In high concentrations, it can also eradicate bacteria cells, although doing so might make the food unappetizing.
Salting can be done in two ways: dry curing and wet curing.
Dry Curing
This entails applying salt to food (i.e., meat) and setting it aside to draw out water.
Wet Curing
More commonly known as brining, wet curing is done using a mixture of salt and water. The resulting liquid will serve as the preserving agent, usually used in canning.
Preserve for the Future
Preserving food has always been done even before refrigerators and freezers were even invented. Considering that you have more tools than those who came before you today, it would be best to use them to your advantage and preserve more food in the long term.
This can be useful not only during pandemics, hurricanes, and other calamities but also for your everyday cooking needs.
AUTHOR BIO
Jad Asaad is the Marketing Manager at Bidfood UAE with more than eight years of experience in digital, online and offline marketing. He started his career in Beirut working in a creative agency and then moved to Dubai to further expand his career. He created and implemented award-winning high-impact digital and offline marketing campaigns that consistently generated revenue streams and improved performance in targeted segments.
