Since we are all experiencing a shortage of canning jars, we should all brush up on our dehydration skills, just in case all those tips to find jars still turns up nothing.

Dehydrating is one of the most economic ways of storing long-term food supplies. Best of all, when you grow your own food sources, you get even more out of the investment.

The dehydration process essentially removes the moisture from foods to preserve them for much longer. Everyone is familiar with jerky (see our recipe here), which is simply dehydrated meat, but because of the nationwide canning jar shortage, dehydration could be the next best thing! Best of all, it’s a way to frugally stock up the pantry and uses fresh food. Best of all, the dehydration process does not diminish the quality or nutritional content of the food.

Get more dehydrating recipes with our best-selling Prepper’s Cookbook.

Choosing a Dehydrator

We have a LEM dehydrator (and meat grinder, and pressure canner) because we like the brand.  The products are reasonably priced and have not had any quality concerns with any of the products. You can et a dehydrator in almost any brand you would like on Amazon, or you can go straight to LEM’s website. (Last I checked, pressure canners are on backorder, but the dehydrators were in stock). If you want to try dehydration foods in lieu of canning this year, consider which dehydrator you would like.

The Excalibur: Food Dehydrating Made Easy {Plus Tasty Recipes}

Prepping on a Budget: 4 Food Dehydrators under $75

There are two types of dehydrators: