Food Waste? Don’t Toss It, Dehydrate It!

Food waste, in my book, is one of the cardinal sins that preppers should never commit.  Don’t throw out unused food, dehydrate it!  Think back over the past week about how much food you threw away.  Not only does that food have a monetary value (would you throw dollars in the trash?), but you may have lessened your family’s chances for survival by throwing away food that could have been eaten.

You can dehydrate almost anything and store it for later use.  Dehydrating greatly increases the shelf life of food, and, unlike canning, it retains almost all of the nutritional value of the original food.  Anytime you heat food to high temperatures, like with canning, you lose a great deal of the nutrition (some say over half), while dehydrating retains over 90% of the foods vitamins and nutrients.  Plus, dehydrated food is lightweight and much easier to store than canned foods.  It’s also much easier to transport in a bug out situation.

Yesterday we went shopping, and since we are preppers we always buy extra food and it wouldn’t all fit in the refrigerator.  While cleaning out the fridge to make space, we pulled out some fresh pineapple that we had cut but not eaten, a couple green peppers, a few mushrooms and some left over stuffing (the kind that comes in a box).

On the counter were 3 bananas that were near their end, a couple of apples and a peach.  At the store we had picked up a big pack of strawberries that had passed their “Best By” date,  They were very cheap (less than half price) and we added them to the pile of uneaten and leftover food.  I suppose it would have been easier to just toss it all in the trash (I cringe at the thought, but I’ve watched friends and neighbors do that very thing), but instead we sliced up all the food and put it in the dehydrator.

We ended up with enough edible, nutritious food to feed 3-4 people a good meal, and it is now all vacuum sealed and has taken its place on our food storage shelves.  Nothing was wasted, including the money that we had paid for the food in the first place.  No food waste, and we’ve added another meal to our long term food storage.

The USA throws out an estimated 130 BILLION pounds of food every year, think of how many mouths that would feed.  It’s a crime, and as preppers we should not be an accomplice to such an atrocity.

If you don’t have a dehydrator, get one IMMEDIATELY.  They’re not expensive, very easy to use (much easier than canning), and will pay for themselves within the first month of use by saving all the food that you may have normally thrown away.  You will also want to invest in a vacuum sealer machine, so you can store your dehydrated foods safely.

Food waste does not have to be an issue in your house.  If you don’t eat it, dehydrate it!

By SHTF Survival Prepper