When prepping, the first step most people is to buy canned food for storage. Nothing wrong with starting here, I did myself. There is one commercially canned vegetable that does not store well on the shelf in prepping supplies. Tomatoes have too much acid to last well in a can, and they end up spoiling. The can then domes up:
You can see doming here on this can. All types of commercially canned tomatoes seem to have this problem. So if you decide to prep with 'off the shelf' spaghetti sauce, be sure and buy it in a glass jar!
The way not to prep:
These cans are not for prepping, so don't worry, they were for the homeless meal! But Do Not put this on the shelf...when you need it, it will be spoiled.
Fortunately, tomatoes are easy to preserve at home:
My preferred method is to dehydrate sliced tomatoes (this includes sun dried), put them into a canning jar, and pull a hard vacuum on them. This method allows them to be stored for decades with little loss in nutrition. They are moisture independent, and temperature extremes do not affect them. I still store them in the dark, just to keep them as fresh as possible. I find that 8 pounds of cherry tomatoes will fit in a one quart jar, so it's space frugal too. As a side note, once dehydrated, mylar bags and oxygen absorbers (if you have the equipment); will preserve the tomatoes as well as the jars, except for mice problems. I will address pest problems in another post, but vermin problems should always be in the back of your mind!
Another good way to preserve tomatoes is by pressure canning (or open kettle if you're good). It must be stored in temperate conditions in the dark, but I know of some that were stored this way for 40 years, that were still editable! Light will rob vitamins, and they can freeze; but this is the least expensive way to preserve tomatoes long term, as it's the simplest equipment.
The last good way to store tomatoes is by freeze drying. This equipment is expensive, but retains most of the nutrients intact. The product can be stored like the dehydrated tomatoes are stored, and is long term stable. I haven't seen a good comparison of nutrition, between the dehydrated and the freeze dried tomatoes; but I suspect they are similar!
I have deliberately omitted the freezing option, because the grid can't be counted on when really prepping! Anything in a freezer must be eaten, or lost in short order. As a result, freezing is not a viable prepping storage method in my humble opinion!
Do you have another preferred method of preservation? Please add it in the comments.
I love dehydrated tomatoes. They put quite a splash into a lot of dishes, are easy to preserve, easy to store, and easy to use. I canned (in glass) some tomatoes, but have only used the dehydrated. I used Amish Paste tomatoes for dehydrating, and they are divine.
What do you mean by open kettle? Next up on my list of how-to as a prepper is the pressure canner, so that not everything I can has either vinegar, sugar, or both. I'm so sick of pickles already.
Open kettle us a water bath canner. High acid foods like tomatoes don't require a pressure cooker, boiling temperature is enough! Mom always added a teaspoon of lemon juice to make sure it was acidic enough. She never had one spoil, and she canned thousands!
I'd buy the pressure canner, because it can always be used for an open kettle canner too. I have half a dozen pressure canners, and cook food in them weekly. So get several sizes....
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OK thanks for that advice. Every year I learn new stuff. I also don't trust freezing food, although I do have a generator. I find that, even frozen, foods don't last long, only a month or two, especially anything that has been cooked, so it's not a great prepper technique. I love your posts on prepping! I think I've learned more from you than from anyone else.
I'm glad I've been helpful! It's the hope that I can help people like you, that keeps me posting.
Keeping air out of the freezer bag will help keep the food longer. I have a friend that double wraps everything...vacuum packing dehydrated food is easier.
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What are good veggies to dehydrate? I like tomatoes and shiitake, but most other veggies I've tried don't taste all that good months later. I don't have a vacuum packer, which could be why. I don't know what that is.
They work best in stew or another slow cooked pot food (chili, spaghetti sauce etc.); where they can be rehydrated thourghly.
You must blanch the vegetables before drying, or enzyme action will continue to toughen them post processing. If you use frozen vegetables from the store, they have been blanched in boiling water already! This is a cheat I use when I find a real deal on frozen vegetables. Otherwise it's like chewing leather, including the taste. Blanching is required for freezing too!
Here's a batch of mixed frozen vegetables I found a case lot deal on. They will be vacuumed from here, and go into long term storage. I like the jars, because I can use some out of the jar, and re-vacuum the remaining food; with no loss.
The vacuum tool I bought off of eBay, and it fits over a jar with a lid only. A tube connects the assembly to a vacuum pump. When the pump removes the air, the lid seals down when the pump is removed. I use a refrigeration type pump, but they have kitchen models; and one Lady, Uses a hand pump designed to bleed brakes. How You get the vacuum is not critical. The kitchen style pulls 14 inches of mercury, mine pulls over 28; while the hand unit pulls about 22. The better the vacuum, the longer it will store safely.
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Excellent info! Thank you!!! So you just put the whole veggies in your dehydrator? I didn't blanch anything, and most of it is inedible. There must be some types of veggies I don't have to blanch though. I can't, for instance, blanch tomato slices. Do you blanch the cherry tomatoes? I have so many questions now!!!
Hey, hivegarden community is adding a prize for best prepper advice to their monthly garden journal contest. I'd love to see you posting for that one. Should I tag you when the contest comes out, on the first of every month, give or take a day? We need more preppers posting with us, if you ask me.
#hive #posh
Hopefully, this share will reach those who need it!
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Our job is to bring this platform to people
More traffic is good for sure!
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The more people there are, the more fun it is to work
Platform traffic is the core of the block chain.
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If there are more people then the platform will be famous in the world and people will benefit from it
Similarly, if these things are to be bought for a long period of time, it is very important that they are of good quality, otherwise the boxes that are in them will deteriorate in the same way as what is inside. It also gets damaged.
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Yes, storage is critical to prepping! No Matter how much you store, if it's ruined before you need it; you don't survive.
Study storage before you prep food!
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In the same way, with the passage of time everything that exists deteriorates.
Entropy sucks for sure! Using vacuum stored dehydrated food, defeats the passage of time for about 30 years, so it's a good food storage option!
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Cannibalization. The best fast food. Just gotta catch and cook it! The ultimate travel food!
Sadly, it will come to that with the profligate spending; when the dollar dies! Beans bullets and band-aids; as Patriot Nurse says....
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Well is a good thing that Russia keeps claiming that they are winning... Lol
Nobody wins! The weapons manufacturers think they are, but look at what's left when it finally stops....
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In the event the end of the world happens there will be plenty of meat free alternative foods... Lol even the survivors of the Apocalypse will still turn their nose up at vegans. Unless it's grass fed vegan...
We are past the point where intact recovery is possible. Too many traitors making policy, and way too much stupid spending for it to hold together.
The Republic will be fractured, and some blue areas will become hell on earth; because they are too smart, to know how to grow food! I hope you are still out where you can be safe, and avoid the worst of it.
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Is it true that the freezing method will only last for 6 months at the most and then what?
This second method you offer in glass jars is great. In fact I don't know if you know this type of preparation, but pickled aubergines and chicken or various products are preserved very well, because of the vinegar contained in the preparation. The same goes for canned tomatoes or peppers, always in glass jars and vacuum packed!
Excellent post @smithlabs 😃
I'm working on fermentation, which is close to pickling, and I plan to pickle some cucumbers for dill pickles. I haven't tried it for meat yet, but I have pressure canned about 50 quarts of chicken.
So many choices, with such limited time!
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Chicken is a good option in the case of meat for preserving, but you can also use other types of meat such as rabbit, hare... I don't know what's out there. In Argentina there is vizcacha, which is like the free range meat, this meat is also used.
It does can well, I watch at a store that takes damaged shipments. The store or restaurant refuses it, so they sell it cheap there. So far I've bought 2 cases of frozen chicken intended for restaurants, about 80 pounds. It has filled 50 plus jars, and made half a dozen meals; for about $20. I love prepping And saving cash at the same time!
Lots of game (deer) at the homestead, but small game is planned for too. All sources needs to be considered....
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It will probably be necessary to hunt. We don't know how long this will last.
I plan on hunting as it may last 3.5 years, by the Bible. Plenty of deer there, and A lot of fish too!
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Something I read about those three years is indeed a time to be prepared.
Chicken is a good option in the case of meat for preserving, but you can also use other types of meat such as rabbit, hare... I don't know what's out there. In Argentina there is vizcacha, which is like the free range meat, this meat is also used.
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I love tomatoes!
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No
Tried to cover all the good options, glad you liked the post!
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Estoy sembrando tomate en el patio de mi casa, me pareció muy interesante tu post, grácias
I am planting tomato in my backyard, I found your post very interesting, thanks.
They are the perfect place to start! Post some pictures....
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Properly stored, things really do last a long time.
We accidentally ended up with some vintage 2007 blackberry jam the other day because it somehow hadn't been fronted through several organization cycles in the pantry. 16 years old, and absolutely delicious... almost — dare I say — like a fine wine. This was just standard canned/boiler in a mason jar.
Last year we experimented with wild horseradish; drying it and turning it into powder as a "hot spice." Insane amount of work, but the end result was great.
Sounds like excellent jam! It does age well, with better flavor layer. Sugar is a fantastic preservative, and I've stocked in a lot of it; even though I don't use it for a sweetener.
I bought a bulk load of horseradish, and dried and stored a quart of it! I didn't think of grinding it for powder spice, I'll try that. I also made a strong tincture with it, which is amazing for upset stomachs.
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Truth be told, it has really been a long time I witnessed tomato been packaged in a can last
Very common in the stores here. I buy for
The pantry, but not the prepping food!
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Beans and rice are good, as long as you put the bags in ziplocks, then a plastic tote tub. The ziplocks keep out bugs, and the tote tub keeps out rodents.
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So true, just be sure to freeze the packaged goods in case what you bought had eggs in it. Weevil eggs are not uncommon from the grocery store.
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I wonder if those eggs are left viable deliberately, so we always have to replace the food after a while!
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Sounds like a plan, ROFLOL!
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You would think they could do something to restrict their viaibility, but they don't. At least it seems that they don't add any, because it is ran; if not frozen. I lost about 10% before I knew about this! I have saved the spoiled containers to plant for seeds.
That said, I would Not put it past them! Just keep on prepping....
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Curses! My cases of tomato paste and sauce are going to have to go into my meal plans quickly then.
Thanks!
Edit: smoking is a good way to preserve meats as well. In my youth my father cold smoked salmon that had been soaked in a slurry of brown sugar and rock salt for ~3 days over alder until it became hard as a rock and translucent. In this way it would keep on a shelf at room temperature for ~6 months. If it got a skin of mold on it, you could just shave that off with a knife, like cheese. At least, in my poverty stricken neck of the woods we would.
You couldn't chew it, because it was indeed rock hard, but you could stuff a flake or so in your cheek and suck on it, which would eventually moisten it until you could, and the whole time you'd enjoy the delicious flavor. The natives called it Squaw Candy, and I can see why, because soaking it in a sugar slurry for days really made it sweet, the salt gave it electrolytic restorative properties, and the alder smoke just makes salmon delicious.
The sugar and salt also act as preservatives. Smoke houses were ubiquitous on homesteads back in the day for these reasons, since people didn't have refrigerators. The miasma of smoke keeps bugs away, so a smoldering fire of fragrant fruitwood or species like alder not only add flavor and carcinogens, but preserve food in the absence of refrigeration.
Sorry, I found out the hard way myself. You might dump the tomatoes into a jar, and pressure can them, but eating them is a good idea too!
I plan a smoke house, but I need to get out there first. Also tomatoes don't smoke well, LOL!
I have both sugar and salt in bulk for preservation use, already at the
homestead. We don't have salmon, but Lake Keystone has a lot of Big fish in it....
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Upon reflection, I think smoked tomatoes sounds like a delicious addition to novel recipes. You may be on to something there!
Could Make an unusual pizza I guess. It would be ake the right recipe for certain.
I wonder if tomatoes would make a good fruit roll up....
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$PIZZA slices delivered:
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Thanks for the pizza, LOL! Glad you liked the post.
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I think I really love this type of food just that hope it will not be really stressful to get it prepared
Cook it long and slow, and it will be just like fresh picked! A boiling pot can be placed into an insulated container, and left all day. It will act like a crock pot, and come out Tasty!
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