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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
XP: Cost comparison of freezing, canning, dehydrating
The blogger Whole New Mom found the cost comparison between freezing, canning, and dehydrating. Which methods do you practice and why?
Re: XP: Cost comparison of freezing, canning, dehydrating
We do all three. Which method we use depends on the produce or meat, and what final results we're looking for. For example,
Freeze: Leafy greens (kale, chard, beet greens, spinach, etc...), peas (sugar and snow), green beans, corn, peppers, and all types of meat.
Dehydrate: Jerky, tomatoes, fruit (apricots, apples, cherries, and blueberries)
Can: Fruit for fresh eating (pears, peaches, etc...), tomato sauce, jams, jellies, salsa.
We also Ferment foods. We ferment pickles, beets, sauerkraut, and a spicy mix of jalapenos, carrots, and onions.
Pretty much, if you can grow it at home or buy it at the Farmer's Market, we preserve it.
We buy produce at the height of it's season, thereby buying it at the lowest price and the highest flavor. Nothing beats home-canned peaches in February, or pasta with home-dried tomatoes in April.
For us, it's not so much about saving money. It's more about knowing where our food comes from and knowing what's in it. Yes, we can buy pasta sauce for $2 a jar at the grocery store. But it will also be full of preservatives, artificial ingredients, and GMOs. For a little more money and time, we make our own organic pasta sauce. Much better tasting, healthier, and safer.
Plus we know that if something happens to fragile food industry, we know how to preserve our own food. Food security is an awesome feeling. I've read in several places that the average American household has 3 days worth of food. 3 days?!? Getting more food can be so easily disrupted, from something as simple as a power outage, or bigger problems like natural disasters or terrorism. We have 6+ months of food in our house, and that's after eating our preserved food all winter. That's a sense of security you can't buy.
We can a lot. We did jelly, jam, chutney, salsa, tomatoes, tomato sauce, syrups, canned in alcohol, applesauce, picallili, and made blueberry basil vinegar. I got a pressure canner for Christmas, so I am going to try and pressure can corn and green beans this year since we have a 1/2 pig in the freezer right now that is taking up space.
We freeze berries, green beans, and greens.
We dehydrated apples and some blueberries (but I am not sure if I cared for the blueberries dehydrated)
We ferment sauerkraut. I am going to expand my fermenting this year and try a lot of new things.
Wow, spritenergy! I am so glad you reposted here because I'll be saving your blog of recipes. How long have you been canning? I started with the easy stuff last year - tomatoes, pickles, and applesauce. I am so happy with how it all came out and looking forward to branching out more this year.
Yeah, we didn't care for the dehydrated blueberries either. Freezing seems to work better, we throw them into smoothies and pancakes. You should try apricots, those are the best when dehydrated.
DH loves fermenting, and will ferment pretty much anything. We have asparagus fermenting right now. Our friends say our freeze is full of "food experiments" LOL.
I helped my mom and grandmother caning jelly, pickles, tomato sauce, and salsa every year growing up. On my own I have been canning for 3 years (this will be my 4th year). We ramped up a lot last year when we decided that we wanted a healthy supply of food in the house. We fell on hard times a few years ago, and we kept going with our garden and canning.
Our friends say the same thing about my kitchen. I have an eclectic style of cooking, and I love trying new ferments. This year I want to try a salt free sauerkraut.