If you have a food dehydrator you can preserve all kinds of fruits, vegetable and meats. This can go a long way towards feeding you if you have no heat, water or electricity. There are a couple of ways to dry out food. You can use an electric dehydrator, a commercially made non-electric dehydrator or you can leave food out in the sun.
Many people say the electric dehydrators, like an Exacalber, work best. These dehydrators have shelves on which you place sliced food. This type of drying process keeps the bugs off food and makes sure that the end product has a little moisture in it as possible. The ultimate dried emergency food is 99.9% moisture-free. For storage purposes the moisture content must be as low as possible.
The reason that dehydrated food makes sense is that it does take up so little space. Food dries very flat and you can store it in layers in any cupboard.
You can dry all meats and fishes including chicken, pork, salmon, trout, shrimp, tuna and tilapia. You can also dry any type of vegetable or fruit with delicious results. If properly packaged without air than the shelf life of this type of food can be up to 25 years.
One treat to make is home-made fruit leather. You make a mash in a blender of fruits you have on hand such as pineapple or citrus fruits and then you roll the mash out in a fruit dehydrator. The end result tastes like fruit roll-ups.
There are very few rules when it comes to drying food. Try to slice it uniformly and keep it in batches so it is all ready at the same time. It is a good idea not to dry and use produce that is rotting or has bad bruises. Do not cut out moldy parts of fruits. Just do not use them.
Be sure to use screens and protect food during the drying processed. Tomatoes can be dried by slicing them very thin and if you like you can season them with salt and pepper before you dry them. Corn can easily be dried by cutting it off the cob and leaving it in the sun to dry.
Storage is usually in freezer bags but you can also put them in to big glass bottles that have oxygen absorbers added to them so that the food cannot absorb water from the air and go bad.