The Method of Freeze-Drying
Freeze-drying is a complicated method of preserving refreshing or currently-cooked foods by eliminating up to 98% of the food’s humidity, leaving intact the food’s texture, flavor, aroma and nutritional worth.
The process demands that the new or cooked meals be rapidly frozen at temperatures as reduced as -50°C. The frozen meals is then placed into a vacuum chamber. This vacuum chamber lowers the pressure, and raises the temperature to just about 0°C.
At this certain temperature and stress, the ice crystals in the foodstuff evaporate into h2o vapor, bypassing water’s liquid kind, via a procedure called sublimation.
This approach preserves the mobile composition and dietary content material of the meals, ensuing in a merchandise that, when rehydrated, extremely carefully resembles the unique foods.
The procedure also prevents the h2o from getting reabsorbed by the meals and therefore decreases its fat significantly.
Most meals objects these kinds of as fruits, vegetables and meats are properly-suited to freeze-drying, and can be utilised for long-term foods storage and preservation.
The Process of Dehydration
Dehydrating foods is a meals preservation approach which has been used for centuries. Native People in america dehydrated their buffalo kills in their looking camps to make it simpler to transportation. Pemmican (a dehydrated concoction of buffalo meat mixed with fat and berries) was a staple of a lot of of the nomadic North American tribes. This reduced-warmth dehydration method included both air drying (with nearby campfires), or solar drying strips of meat on drying racks.
Dehydrators are a modern day method for slowly and gradually removing the humidity from foods with out in fact cooking it. A downside of dehydration is the constrained amount of meals which can be dried at 1 time. The good aspect of dehydration is that this approach of processing for food storage can be easily carried out at home.
How Do These Two Approaches Influence the Food?
Freeze-dried food items protect significantly of the first colour, shape, aroma and freshness of fruits, greens and meats. Freeze-dried foods does not usually include additives or preservatives, so it stays accurate to its first form. And Ghana food in Kong Kong , texture and taste of the foods continues to be right after re-hydration.
Not like low-heat dehydration, freeze-drying permits for the preservation of pre-cooked meals, which includes recipes such as soups, stews, stroganoff, and the like. An obvious advantage is that given that the meal was geared up in its entirety prior to freeze-drying, all you want to do is just include h2o, then heat for a handful of minutes in purchase to generate luxurious foods.
Rehydrating freeze-dried foods will take just a few minutes, simply by adding boiling water. Some foods, like many fruits and greens, need to have no re-hydration before taking in.
Dehydrated foodstuff shrink in the course of processing as the moisture is eliminated. So the foodstuff item itself is substantially scaled-down than its original dimensions.
The re-hydration time of dehydrated meals normally takes a bit more time than freeze-dried, but it stills preferences like the unique kind of the meals. Some dehydrated meals contain added components to enhance flavors or help in preservation. As with freeze-dried fruits and greens, dehydrated fruits and greens can be eaten without having any re-hydration.
Each methods of meals preservation enhance the long-time period storage existence of food. Most commercially made freeze-dried and dehydrated food items have a shelf life of fifteen to 20 years, if properly packaged and saved in a cool, dry environment.
In addition to their getting a dependable resource of meals in an crisis or extended-expression survival state of affairs, since of their gentle fat and ease of portability, these food items are also excellent for using on camping, hiking and hunting excursions. They are also a wise selection to preserve in an unexpected emergency road-side package for the car, or in your bug out bag.
If you select to hold these foods in your car as component of an crisis kit, make sure you don’t forget to rotate them periodically. Temperatures in a vehicle can get to extremes, both hot and chilly. Large warmth as properly as continuous temperature fluctuations contribute to a lot quicker degradation of each dehydrated and freeze-dried meals.
Which Kind is Far better for Usage?
Everyone is different, and each man or woman has their own personal tastes and preferences. With that in brain, there are a few issues to think about just before making a decision amongst freeze-dried or dehydrated meals.
Home-developed fruits and veggies are greater preserved by means of dehydration, considering that the common man or woman cannot find the money for the costly machinery utilized in freeze-drying.
Meals utilized in everyday cooking and meal planning ought to probably be freeze-dried. This permits the food to be swiftly re-hydrated as it is cooked prior to serving. If accessibility and portability are crucial, than possibly sort of preserved food should meet these certain requirements. Once once more, it is a issue of personalized tastes.
In a nutshell, equally dehydrated and freeze-dried food items are outstanding selections for prolonged-expression food storage, as well as for every day use or for climbing, camping, and so on. They both offer light-fat, transportable, convenient meals. The principal difference is that freeze-dried foodstuff are inclined to much better preserve the shape, texture and flavors of the first foodstuff.
Most individuals will locate that a blend will function greatest for their demands. Single-merchandise meals such as vegetables, potatoes, and other staples and grains are properly-suited to minimal-warmth dehydration. Freeze-drying is much more acceptable for meats and fruits (whose texture can be preserved), and for pre-cooked meals with a selection of ingredients such as soups, stews and sauces.