Storage: making food durable for a long time by preserving it or preserving it
Created: 12/15/2022 9:14 am
By: Janine Napirca
Creating an emergency supply for emergencies makes sense.
But note the shelf life of the food.
Preserving fruit and vegetables makes them last longer.
In order to be well prepared for a possible crisis, you should build up an emergency supply of long-lasting food.
One popular preservation method is canning.
The process of making food last longer is also called preserving - after the inventor Johann Weck.
You should not confuse preserving or preserving with preserving.
Boiling, canning or preserving - what's the difference?
While preserving means sterilizing food, preserving means pasteurizing the ingredients.
The former, in which the ingredients are first placed in the jar and then heated, preserves the food even longer than the latter, in which the ingredients are first cooked and then placed in the jar.
Sample image - not the actual recipe image
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Instructions: How can you preserve food for a long time by preserving it for emergency supplies?
The right preparation: Thoroughly rinse the mason jars, including the lid, rubber seal and spring clips, with hot water.
While you can put the glasses and lids in the dishwasher or wash them with detergent, you should not do this with the rubber rings, because then they will no longer close properly.
Cleaning with vinegar, on the other hand, works quite well.
You should also wash the fruit and vegetables that you want to preserve or preserve well.
Only use fresh, good quality produce.
Proper preserving/canning: Put the ingredients in the mason jar, close it with the lid and spring clips and place it in the pot.
You can place a tea towel between them to prevent the glass and pot from touching.
Then fill the pot with water so that the mason jars are about three quarters under water.
Depending on the food, the process takes between ten minutes and two hours.
After preserving/preserving: After preserving, leave the preserving jars in the hot water for a quarter of an hour.
After that, take them out carefully and cover them with a kitchen towel.
The mason jars cool down and a vacuum forms.
When the jars are cold, you can remove the spring clips and use the lid test (lift the jar by the jar lid) to check whether the jar is airtight.
Proper storage: Store preserves in a cool, dry and dark place - for example in the cellar, in a storage room or in the kitchen cupboard.
You can tell whether your preserves are still good by the fact that the lid is still tightly closed and is not lying loosely on the glass.
If the glass lid makes a "plop" when you open it, you can consume the food from the emergency supply that has been preserved for a longer period of time without hesitation.
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Alternative: Preserving in the oven - making emergency supplies last longer
Instead of boiling the filled mason jars in a saucepan with water, you can also fill a drip tray with water and bake on the lowest shelf in the oven for about half an hour.
Fruit needs between 150 and 160 degrees Celsius to cook in the oven, vegetables between 190 and 200 degrees Celsius.
What foods should you not refreeze after defrosting?
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Stock up on emergency supplies: What other methods are there to make food last longer?
In addition to preserving or preserving, there are other methods of preserving food.
You can also extend the shelf life of fruits in emergency supplies by drying or dehydrating them.
Candying is another way of making fruit last longer.
Fermenting is suitable for sauerkraut and vegetables.
For example, do you know Korean kimchi?
Overview of methods for preserving food and their possible storage duration:
procedure | Food | storage duration |
|---|---|---|
Boiling/canning | Fruit and vegetable juices, jams, marmalades, jellies, chutneys | up to one year |
pickling in alcohol | Rumtopf, fruits in alcohol | some months |
Soaking in preserving solutions | Eggs, herbs, feta cheese | weeks to months |
Sugar | Jam, marmalade, jelly, fruit syrup, candied fruit | a few months to a year |
drying | Dried fruit, legumes, herbs, cereals | up to one year |
acidify | Cucumbers, mixed pickles, fish, sweet and sour pickled fruit and vegetables | some months |
lactic acid fermentation | Sauerkraut, sour beans, pickles | some months |
Cool | butter, eggs, milk, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables | one day to several months |
Freeze | Vegetables, fish, meat, fruit, baked goods, home-made meals | a few months to a year |
salting | meat, meat products | some weeks |
Salt | Fish, meat, meat products | weeks to months |
fumigation | Meat fish | weeks to months |
Source: Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
Fish and meat in emergency stocks, on the other hand, can be made to last longer by refrigeration – with the right preparation even in the event of a blackout – or by salting or pickling.
You can also extend the shelf life of fish and meat by smoking.