Informative

Proper Food Storage: The Ultimate Guide to Storing Freeze Dried Foods

Proper food storage is critical for maintaining food quality and safety while preserving its color, texture, flavor, and vital nutrients. ⁽¹⁾ The food packaging depends on whether the food is dry or perishable. While most food packaging is airtight and capable of keeping food fresh for an extended period, others are not. At Mother Earth Products, we package our freeze dried products in mylar bags, quart jars, or moisture-absorbent packets to ensure longevity.

Freeze dried foods have gained popularity in recent years because of their longevity. They're portable, lightweight, and simple to store. ⁽²⁾ Although they have a longer shelf life, improper packaging can affect the food quality. If you want them to last after opening, you must take certain precautions before storing them for a lengthy period. In this article, we'll go over how to store your freeze dried foods so they stay fresh longer.

Why is proper food storage necessary?

Proper food storage is vital for preventing foodborne infections, reducing food waste, and lowering food production costs. ⁽¹⁾ Furthermore, it helps to preserve food for later use. The amount of time you should keep your food varies on the type. Meat, for example, must be refrigerated, although fruits and vegetables do not. ⁽³⁾

Here's why appropriate food storage is critical:

Poorly kept food is prone to contamination which might cause food poisoning. ⁽¹⁾
Proper food storage reduces food wastage and helps save money. If you properly rotate foods or keep them at the right temperature, you won't need to discard them. ⁽⁴⁾
It saves the planet. Food production uses natural resources and may also require industrial processes that produce harmful gas emissions. Minimizing food wastage is beneficial to the environment. ⁽⁵⁾
It saves you time. Having every food item in the proper storage unit prevents you from wasting time searching.

What is freeze drying?

Freeze drying is a food preservation method that uses sublimation to remove water from its cells. The process reduces the moisture content of food, thus remaining fresh at room temperature without refrigeration. As a result, there is a longer shelf life and reduced food wastage. Freeze drying effectively preserves food that may spoil quickly after harvestings, such as fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, and meat. ⁽¹⁾

Freeze dried food is available in various forms, including fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, and beans. It is also available in various quantities, from individual servings to big containers. You can eat the food right from the bag. However, after opening, you may need to invest in adequate food storage containers that reduce humidity and increase their shelf life.

Benefits of Freeze Drying

Freeze drying effectively inhibits the growth of pathogenic microorganisms and enables food preservation without refrigeration. ⁽²⁾
It preserves the nutrients, flavor, and organoleptic (involving the use of sensory organs: eyes, mouth, smell, etc.) characteristics of foods.
It makes food storage, transportation, and distribution easier since it decreases weight and eliminates the need for a cold chain.
Allows rehydration, allowing the meal to regain its organoleptic properties and weight.
Freeze-dried foods can remain fresh for years! Its lifespan, however, is determined by how it is stored. ⁽⁴⁾

Basic Freeze Dried Food Storage Guidelines

If you have noticed a change in the taste of freeze dried foods from the last time you ate them, then you're likely to store the food properly. Here are some guidelines for keeping freeze-dried meals correctly so that they remain fresh longer:

Rotate your stored foods regularly so that you use the oldest foods first.
Store freeze dried foods in a dry place, away from sources of humidity that might contribute to mold formation.
Keep them out of direct sunlight because light can harm freeze dried foods whenever feasible, and can cause color to fade.
Protect them from extreme temperatures, because it can induce chemical changes in freeze dried foods, resulting in loss of taste and nutritional value.
Keep them away from open flames.
Store them in airtight bags or containers and seal them properly to keep them dry, light-protected, and humidity-free. We can give you tips on how to do this.
Ensure your containers have adequate locking mechanisms to keep them from opening in transit.

How to Store Freeze-Dried Food Storage for a Long Time

The storage of dried foods is equally as crucial as that of perishable ones since it can still get contaminated by physical or chemical agents. To guarantee that your freeze dried foods survive as long as possible:

Keep them in an excellent, cool, dry spot away from sources of humidity and light. Keeping your dry storage items in dry, dark places away from direct sunlight will extend the shelf life of your food and help you maintain the temperature. ⁽¹⁾
Store them in food-grade Mylar bags, quart jars, or oxygen absorber packs, and keep them in a cool and dry storage room. You can get the storage packaging here.
Mark the date you placed the freeze dried items into long-term storage on their package for the best outcomes so you know when it's safe to eat them. Each package you purchase from us will have a date on the bottom right hand portion of the label.

How to store freeze dried foods after opening

After opening, the foods begin to reabsorb the moisture in the air, softening and exposing them to harmful contaminants and deteriorating faster. Once you open a pack, keep the food in an airtight container such as a glass jar or a sealable Mylar bag to extend the shelf life.
Also, keep the food containers in a dry, dark, and cool pantry or storage room since light can also quicken freeze-dried foods' deterioration. ⁽⁵⁾
Maintain proper temperatures and discard foods exposed to excessive heat for an extended period.
Apply the first in first out (FIFO) strategy to use previously purchased items before purchasing new products. Label all food items stored at room temperature that are not in their original containers with the product's name, lot number, and opening date. Arrange the products according to their purchase date or expiry date.
To minimize cross-contamination, keep freeze dried foods separately from raw foods.
You can repackage your freeze dried goods in two ways: In their original packaging or repackaged in mylar bags. If packing them in their original containers, ensure they're clean, sterilized, and free of potential pathogens.
When repackaging your freeze dried food into mylar bags, use food-grade bags and seal them correctly to eliminate contamination and keep the food dry. Wear gloves and use clean, sterilized containers when repackaging freeze dried goods at home.

How long does freeze-dried food last after opening?

We recommend you go by the date on each label (bottom right hand corner). You should consume the remaining part within 6-12 months if not storing in a cool, dry, dark place. ⁽⁵⁾ If you don't use the food frequently, you can reseal it in a Mylar bag and store it in a dark storage area.

Conclusion

Food preservation is an excellent strategy to protect your health and your wallet! Keep your freeze dried foods away from light and humidity for longer shelf life. Proper food storage also makes it easier to regulate expiry dates while preserving the items' freshness and organoleptic properties. Click here to buy food-grade storage bags.

References

Will Organic Freeze Dried Vegetables Be on Everyone's Menu in the Future?

Be it your view on mental health or how you wash your hands, we all had to re-evaluate some of our preCOVID-19 habits following the onset of the pandemic. However, the one thing that required the most effort (but we all had to come to terms with) was the new status quo in grocery shopping.

Between empty supermarket shelves and food supply chains being pushed to their limits, we had to readjust the way we shopped to accommodate our new quarantined lifestyles. So, we stockpiled like crazy!

But with this new shopping philosophy came a new set of rules: from shopping in bulk to opting for foods that last longer. And this is how freeze dried vegetables came out of the astronaut shadows' and became a niche on their own.

But if you think that freeze dried food was just a pandemic trend, we're here to tell you that they're here to stay. In fact, here are five reasons why organic freeze dried vegetables (OFDVs) are a treat that future generations will swear by.

Organic Freeze Dried Vegetables: The Food of the Future?

If Covid-19 has taught us anything since it first came out, it's that our food supply chain - from farm to fork - is hanging on by a thread⁽¹⁾. We could blame it all on the increase in global demand for food⁽²⁾ or the ever-decreasing numbers in the human workforce⁽³⁾. But no matter the reasons, there's no denying that the production and distribution of fresh food are becoming an increasingly uphill task for both farmers and suppliers.

And that's why we're seeing a big surge in freeze dried vegetables. The once "bland space food" is turning into the next big thing in the food industry as its long shelf life has become a hot commodity for consumers, who now value shelf stability more than freshness.

After all, it's not uncommon for shoppers to run into empty supermarket shelves - which instantly makes organic crunchy peas a much wiser choice than, say, a pound of fresh peas that'll go bad in a week.

Besides, this never-go-bad nature isn't the only thing that makes organic freeze dried vegetables a future-proof pantry option, as today's crop of OFDVs is a far cry from MREs of the past. In fact, they're engineered to keep the food's nutritional profile intact and preserve its original flavor. So, it's basically like eating fresh produce (with the only exception that you must rehydrate it first).

But What is Freeze Drying, Anyway?

Also known as lyophilization, freeze drying⁽⁴⁾ is a dehydration method during which certain foods are frozen so that their content in water turns into ice. Then, this ice is meticulously removed by sublimation. This method operates at low temperatures and eliminates the need for heat to remove the water (evaporation). As a result, the food's taste, nutritional value, and appearance remain intact. Freezing the food also inhibits the microbes from growing and spreading, which prevents the food from going bad quickly (hence OFDVs' long shelf life).

5 Reasons Why Freeze Dried Vegetables Are the Ultimate Future Food

• They're Healthy

We've all heard (or read) the rumors that freeze drying strips the food of its nutrients and leaves it an empty shell of a nosh. But the truth is quite different. The vegetables that go through freeze drying are actually harvested and preserved at the peak of their ripeness and nutrient content. As a result, they're just as nutritious and healthy as their fresh counterparts. And we should also mention that our variety is organic⁽⁵⁾, meaning our products are grown without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and bioengineered genes (GMOs).

• They Have a Long Shelf Life

No matter what the future holds for the food industry, one thing is for sure: Organic freeze dried vegetables are an excellent way to ensure your eating habits from possible fluctuations in the market. Thanks to their long shelf life, OFDVs give you the chance to store your favorite produce for months (even decades at times) and enjoy them whenever the mood strikes - even if their prices skyrocket due to global shortage or when they're out of season.

• They Require Minimal Prepping

With the "epidemic of busyness"⁽⁶⁾ being an everyday occurrence for most millennials (and probably Gen-Zers), skipping cooking seems like a legit way to save some minutes during the day. But OFDVs offer an alternative. Since these ingredients are cut and cooked before freeze drying, they require minimal prepping and could spare you from losing time in the kitchen. The only thing you have to do is soak them in water and get on with your recipe.

• They Are Versatile

Another advantage of organic freeze dried vegetables for future menus is their ability to fit almost any need and taste. Whether you want them cut into smaller pieces or preserved whole, these veggies can be part of every meal, from energizing breakfasts to hearty dinners. In some cases, you can even grind them into a fine powder and add them to smoothies or sauces. Such versatility will allow you to use OFDVs as a blank canvas for infinite recipes and make them work no matter what you make with them.

• They're Easy to Transport

Water makes up a large part of the food we eat. Vegetables⁽⁷⁾, in particular, consist of more than 70% of water. Since most of the water is removed during freeze drying, organic freeze dried vegetables' overall mass decreases, making them lighter and easier to carry around. That could prove helpful in cases where people need to cross long distances to reach a destination and need to feed themselves along the way. Let's not forget that environmental migration is an imminent threat for most tropical and some continental populations.

Have you tried our organic freeze dried vegetables? If so, which are your favorites? Let us know in the comment section down below!

References:

Eat What You Want Day

May 11 is the National Eat What You Want Day. Although we eat food every day, this day is unique because you can eat whatever you want.

In the current era, people are obsessed with diets and meal plans. You probably spend time stressing over what you can or cannot eat. To make it worse, the magazines splash images of perfectly toned models that can make you feel inadequate.

There are several food fads that come and go. But on May 11, everyone can relax and forget about their diet goals just this once in a year. You can try something new or indulge in the craving that you've been putting off.

History of Eat What You Want Day

Eat What You Want Day was initiated by Thomas and Ruth Roy. The intention was to help people break away from the overwhelming diet plans, and diet trends, for just one day.¹ They have created about 90 fun holidays that are registered officially under the Wellcat Holidays.²

Giving yourself a break often is good for you. Signing up for low calories diet fads can potentially make you overeat when you switch back to your normal diet patterns

Why Should You Celebrate Eat What You Want Day?

Have a break from the usual

This day is a perfect break from the norm of keeping up with strict diet plans and allows you to eat just this once. It is totally okay to check on your diet, no dispute. After all, not everyone has a naturally fast metabolism. It also gives you a chance to flip your routine and put away the structure. You can scrape off your meal plan just this once and be spontaneous.

Have the freedom to choose

Eat What You Want Day is a perfect chance to have the freedom to indulge in your cravings without feeling guilty about it. It provides an opportunity to help you hold on your regimen longer since you'll have a chance to soothe your cravings then get back on track.

Be kind to yourself

By indulging in your craving without any guilt, you show kindness to yourself. It gives you the assurance that you can keep with the diet all year long, but just this once you satisfy your inner self of whatever it yearns for. It will teach you to be kind to yourself.

How to Celebrate Eat What You Want Day

It's easy to celebrate this holiday since you can eat whatever you want. You can stop counting the calories and eat some ice-cream, pizza, or fries. Since everyone is different, you get to choose whatever will make you happy and quell your cravings that have been bothering you.

However, it's not only junk foods that qualify in the eat what you what day checklist. You can spoil yourself to an expensive meal that you would not buy every day. Like treating yourself to a five-course meal at a restaurant. Call your favorite restaurant and order. Make sure to get your favorite bottle of wine as well. You deserve it.

Considering the current situation in the world, you can also consider recreating your favorite childhood meal, this time with the help of your children and spouse as you stay at home. Get the recipe from your mom or grandma. The critical thing is to indulge in something that you enjoy whatever food that you choose to celebrate this one day.

What People Eat On Eat What You Want Day

You have your own choices, but what are people eating? The top food that most Americans would eat daily if they did not have to worry about the consequences is pizza. The other top foods include pasta, burgers, ice cream, tacos or burritos, chocolate, and French fries - in that order. The others are French fries, cakes, cookies, cheese and donuts.³

How To Make Eat What You Want Day Fun

There are several ways to make Eat What You Want Day fun?

First, you can switch things up and eat what you'd eat for diner at breakfast and have breakfast for dinner. You can eat some pancakes sprinkled with maple syrup and bacon and a smoothie. It's up to you.

Second, you can allow your children to be in charge of meals this day to make it fun for them. Let them decide what will be for dinner this day so that they can also have their own food fantasy come to fruition. You may be surprised to get a delicious treat that you wouldn't think of yourself.

Third, you can break your regular food routine. Ditch the lunchbox and go for lunch with your colleagues. Change your typical routine and enjoy the day.

Lastly, celebrate Eat What You Want Day by ordering or preparing your favorite food that you cannot eat regularly because you're sticking to a diet. Make sure to make it a family affair, especially now that you’re in isolation, and you can't meet with friends.

Life is short to not to have a break from a strict diet this once. Give in to your sweet tooth because no one should give you a side-eye or tell you what you shouldn't eat on Eat What You Want Day. It is definitely perfect escape from the counting calories and suppressing the cravings.

References

Would We Starve Without Bees?

“To the bee, a flower is the foundation of life, and to the flower, the bee is a messenger of love.” Kahlil Gibran.¹Would we starve without bees? Do you ever think about where the food we eat comes from?
Bees are hardworking creatures with a laborious work ethic. They play a vital role in sustaining the world’s ecosystem.¹They pollinate around 84% of crops that are grown for human consumption. These crops rely on pollination to increase the yields and quality. These include fruits and vegetables, as well as nuts, coffee, sunflowers, and tea.²
Their contribution to the ecosystem is invaluable. Animals feed on fruits and berries from the plants pollinated by bees. More so, humans feed on the same plants, and the animals as well. Therefore, bees deserve the title, “guardians of the world’s food chain and biodiversity of our species.”³

A symbiotic relationship

Bees need the flowers for food while the flowers depend on the bees for reproduction.⁴ Nectar and pollen from flowering plants are the only sources of food for the bees. Nectar gives energy while pollen is rich in protein.²
During this process of searching for food, the bees get covered in pollen from the male part of the flower, the stamen, and the deposit on the female part, the stigma, of the next flower that they visit.¹
They carry balls of pollen on their back legs which collect on the pollen baskets that they go back with to the hive to feed their young ones after fertilizing the flowers.²

Born to do it

Bees do their work dutifully, and they are excellent at it. They were created for it. They have stiff hairs and pockets on their legs that allow them to collect more pollen. This also helps to efficiently transport it from one part to another or one plant to another.²
Bees tend to visit the flowers on the same plant rather than move from one plant to another. Bees focus their energies on one species of a plant at a time.¹ This ensures that higher quality pollination takes place rather than distributing different pollen to other plants.⁵
Bumble bees are more successful, because they have bigger and have more vigorous vibrations. This helps to disperse the pollen to the flowers it visits.³

Importance of pollination

Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the flower, from which then a seed is formed.²Once the pollen is deposited on the stigma, it moves down to the ovary and fertilizes and forms a seed. The seed will then grow into a vegetable or a fruit.⁴ Think about the apple tree that blossoms into many apples - all because of fertilization.

Provides a source of food

It might surprise you that a third of our food is dependent on pollination.² Bees play a significant role in the food we eat directly through pollination. Although some plants rely on wind for cross-pollination, while others rely on animals, other insects, or birds, most rely on bees for pollination.¹
Without pollination, seeds won’t form and thus we won’t have the food supply. Pollination isn’t just important for the food we eat, but also is key for crops, such as field beans and clover, which livestock depends on for food, which we depend on for meat.
More so, pollination maintains the genetic diversity of flowering plants. Flowers that are visited often produce larger and more uniform fruit compared to the less visited ones.⁴Without the bees, we wouldn’t have our freeze dried broccoli, blueberries, or apples and a majority of other products.
And that’s not all.
Bees provide us honey and wax. Honey is formed using nectar. They regurgitate it and pass it back and forth in their mouths to one another, then deposit it, and seal in a honeycomb. Bees store honey in their hives as their winter food stores.³
Honey contributes to 400 million pounds in the UK.³ Also, it was valued at $317.1 million in 2013 in the US.²

Beautify the world

Through pollination, the floral landscapes are made beautiful and provide attractive homes to other insects and birds.⁵ Plants attract bees by their bright colors: open or flat flowers that have lots of pollen and nectar.

Honey bee shortage threatens crop pollination

In the past, farmers relied on wild bees for pollination. However, their population is on the decline at an alarming rate, because of extreme weather conditions, use of pesticides, disease, and loss of habitat climate change.⁴ Now farmers have to buy commercially bred bumble bees and put them on their land hoping that they would pollinate their crops. It is expensive and can spread disease.⁵As Albert Einstein said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years to live.”²
There is a great urgency to restore our ecosystem and create landscapes that support diverse flora and fauna as man’s survival is linked to bees. Looking at how important bees are for our survival, what would we do without them?

References

History of Freeze Drying

Freeze-drying, or lyophilization, is the removal of water from frozen food through a process called sublimation.¹This process is done under a vacuum and low temperatures, and the product freezing solidly during the process.²
Freeze drying removes water from the food to make it last longer. The water's vaporized through the process of sublimation, where water, in solid state, changes directly to vapor, producing a product with controllable moisture.² It's a perfect way to preserve food, since freeze dried food products don't shrink.³Freeze dried foods can be stored without cooking or refrigeration. They need no additional flavor or color modification. Freeze dried foods are also light and are ideal for space travel, camping, backpacking, and traveling.¹

The Process

Freezing - the product frozen to enable low-temperature drying.
Vacuum - placed under vacuum to allow the frozen solvent to vaporize through sublimation: it doesn’t pass through the liquid phase.
Heat - applied to the frozen product to accelerate sublimation.
Condensation - low temperature enforced by the condenser plates to remove the vaporized solvent from the vacuum chamber by converting it back to a solid. This completes the process of separation. The result is a dry product.²

The History of Freeze Drying

Freeze drying origins are traced back to the ancient Peruvian Incas of the Andes in the 15th century.² ¹ They stored their crops, like potatoes, on the mountain heights above Machu Picchu. The cold mountain temperatures froze the food stores, and water gradually vaporized under low pressure because of the high mountain altitudes - freeze drying the food.³ Buddhist monks living on the sacred mountain "Koya" used this technique. They stored tofu in the mountain snow, where the high altitudes and cold winds freeze dried the tofu. ³
In 1905, Benedict and Manning created the first freeze dryer, which dried the blood tissues using a chemical pump.³In 1910, Shackell modified the basic design of the Benedict and Manning pump to an electrically driven pump to create the required vacuum, instead of the displacement of air with ethyl ether used in the original design.²In 1934, the US patent was issued to Elser for creating the drying equipment that replaced Shackell’s design with a cold trap chilled with dry ice.³

Modern Freeze Drying

In the 1940s during World War 2, freeze drying took on the modern method, due to the need for blood.³ The blood sent to Europe from the US for the medical treatment of wounded soldiers required refrigeration.⁴Due to the lack of refrigeration and transport, blood supplies would spoil before arriving at their destination;¹ So, more modern freeze drying techniques had to be created to preserve blood plasma, making it possible for the blood to be chemically stable without the need for refrigeration. ²
The medical community implemented freeze drying for penicillin and bone.⁴ They recognized freeze drying as an important technique for preservation of biological matter.¹ A freeze dryer was used, and it had a large chamber for freezing and a vacuum pump for removing moisture.² From then on, freeze drying became a preservation technique for pharmaceuticals and food.¹ Since the 1960s, over 400 different types of freeze dried foods have been produced commercially using freeze drying.² NASA adopted this technique in 1968, and created freeze dried ice cream.
Freeze dried coffee outruns all other freeze dried products in popularity. ² First produced in 1938 by Nestle after Brazil requested the company to help them find a solution to the coffee surplus, Nescafe, an instant coffee powder, debuted in Switzerland. It paved the way to the production of powdered food products.²
Freeze drying evolves continually. More products pop up more every year, because freeze drying's popularity has grown for a variety of different foods and flavors. They retain their natural composition, and the integrity of minerals, vitamins and other nutrients.

References