Having a meal ready to go in just 5-minutes with just the addition of a bit of water is an obvious game-changer. You don’t even need water for this one. You could crunch on it right out of the bag if you had to. Whether you are amidst a disaster or on the road fleeing to a safer location, freeze-dried foods provide a super lightweight meal ready to eat. Even if you just rehydrate a meal in 5-minutes instead of spending an hour or more cooking it after work, you save time, money, and you get better nutrients by eating food you made yourself instead of snacks pressed and fried off an assembly line.
Sometimes you only need some ration bars to get you through a short disaster. A high-calorie, nutrient-dense bar can provide you with sugars, proteins, and carbohydrates to keep you moving and keep you alive. The problem with many bars is that you don’t know what they are putting in them. The other problem is that they can focus on nutrition so much that they taste as good as wet cardboard. While having some granola bars in your inventory is great, when you make a batch of bars yourself, you will find that they taste better, and you know exactly what kind of nutrients and calories you are taking into your body. These are calorically-dense bars that will fuel you up through any disaster.
With that in mind, this is my latest calorically and nutrient-dense bar. It might not be the best, but it tastes good and has the calories you would need after a disaster to sustain you. Here we will make a calorically dense, nutritious emergency ration bar with a decent shelf-life. I will take it a step further in this video and take moisture readings from one I left out overnight, one that I dehydrated, and one that I freeze-dried. From this, we can try and determine shelf-life. There are many recipes online for emergency ration bars, and I have tried many. Let’s do this…
In this video, I’ll make and freeze-dry classic Chili Mac. To rehydrate, just add hot water, and you’re eating a home-cooked meal while the disaster rages outside. Throughout this series on the Harvest Right Freeze-Dryer, I’ll give you a few pro-tips based on lessons I have learned and one technical fact per video….
NOTES:
* Here is a packet of seeds like the one I mentioned last week. There are 40 different varieties of seeds. They are 100% heirloom. This means that you can save the seeds from year to year. There is a 5-year shelf life if kept in a cool, dark place. There is a 30-year shelf life if kept in the freezer. AND there are a gardening book that comes with it—16,500 Heirloom Vegetable Seeds 40 Variety Kit. The cost is $35. You cannot buy 40 seed packets for that price. But, in some of the varieties, you only get a few seeds. For example, bush beans only have 12 seeds included. Zucchini has only 8 seeds. Anyway, check it out. Even though you only have 8 zucchini plants, just 1 or 2 zucchini, let go to seed will give you dozens of seeds for future use.
* Here is another choice Spring Garden Bundle. The number of seeds is not listed but probably similar.
* One last choice from Seed Armory.
* I wanted to share this video by my friend, Kris. He has been getting his family prepared for a while now, as you can see from this site. He just finished this video: How to Build 1 Year of Food Storage – Ultimate Guide – YouTube. Everything you need to know and all the “how to’s” included!
* I just found this website. Mary’s Nest: Mary’s Nest – YouTube She has videos on EVERYTHING: sourdough starters, stocking a pantry, how to preserve crisp pickles, homemade yogurt, natural remedies for colds and flu. It’s a treasure trove of information. Check it out!
LONG TERM FOCUS: Rice
If you are still unsure about packing rice, here is a YouTube video to show you how. How to Store Bulk Rice – YouTube
