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My wife is a scrounge she finds free foods all over the place. I think she knows where every fruit tree within 10 miles is located and who owns it (slight exaggeration). However, she does have a whole network of friends who give her fruits and vegetables all the time and she happily preserves them. A lot of them are people she has met through church, who have similar interests.
They watch for food growing in people’s yards that are not picked and will stop by and talk to them. Often the people are either busy or older and are happy to have someone gather their fruit for a share. If someone has too much, they split it up and everyone gets a share.
Our Excalibur dehydrator seems to run 24/7, she is always drying something and it rarely comes from the store. In the last week, he has dried papaya, persimmons, pomegranate seeds, apples, pears, oranges and lemons. I don’t think any of it came from the store. Don’t ask where the papaya came from; I know they don’t grow them around here in the winter. The other fruits are all local.
She dehydrates, cans or pickles everything she can find and it all taste good. Over the years it has saved us lots of money and is way healthier than what you get at the stores.
Don’t think that you need a huge place to accomplish this. We have a small house and not a lot of property. Try it, you will find it is a great way to add to your food storage and eat well at the same time.
Howard
I have not seen anything on the prepper Web concerning which regions of which countries allow non-electrical food dehydration. Excalibur is doubtless a fine product but at SHTF it is an electrical appliance that needs off-grid power. My impression is that in CONUS, California or Arizona climates would permit a prepper to build a solar dryer but e.g. Florida would not on account of its humidity. Biltong was developed using outside drying in winter in S. Africa, which has low humidity, whereas I believe that if you want to produce biltong in Florida, you would need to air-dry it inside using a/c. I ask myself if there is a way of dehydrating anywhere in the world when there is no electricity for a dryer, and I suspect not.
Just a thought on off-grid solutions. Too much humidity? run a pipe through the earth to help lower humidity (geothermic temperature lower than a hot summer day) and feed that air into your dryer. not enough sun? check Mother Earth news for solar space heater ideas, and pipe that pre-heated air into your dryer. Or heat the air AFTER your dryer to help draw fresh air into your heater without a fan. no reason you can’t use a combination of these ideas, and produce the desired results.
You can dry things in Florida via solar, I’ve done it several times simply placing sliced fruits or veggies on a screen, and placing them outside in the shade, being sure to bring them in as evening approaches.
But living in Florida, I also have a small 12 solar panels system generating enough electricity to run my dehydrator, if needed. I put all that free sunshine to work!
And my Excalibur runs more often than not. I dehydrate something almost every week.
Peace,
db
Keeping hot air moving will draw out the moisture. The more there earth news solar dehydrator plans are very good
Sorry— keyboard mess up. Mother Earth News
Mother Earth News has some very good information. Thanks for recommending their solar dehydrator plans.
Dehydrate foods in your car in summer. Otherwise, set it in netted trays in the sun and bring it in overnights. I live in Kansas.
Yes, as long as the interior of the car is very dry.