my kingdom for freeze dry

MY KINGDOM FOR FREEZE DRIED

You bastards lazing about the blog didn't get the article, because you didn't sign up for the e-mail newsletter. I would have gotten around to repeating it for your benefit, however. The consumer deep freeze sublimation method of making your own freeze dried foods. Simply, you put your food on a cookie sheet and place in the regular freezer and wait a month. Well, there is a bit of an issue with this method, as I was informed by a caring minion. Perhaps bunny food works fine, but not so meats.

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You can cook and drain hamburger, or you can remove all fat from ham and slice it thin. That will work. But all the other meats, if not sliced razor thin, take more like a minimum of TWO months in the freezer to work. Here I was all ready to go all in on freeze dry DIY, putting our back up deep freezer in the laundry room and putting thirty trays in there and buying meat on sale and drying a good fifty pounds a month ( the commercial freeze dried is one pound dry, five pounds cooked before drying ).

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But I won't spend hours on food prep like an illegal Latino, nor wait three months for a batch. Twenty years ago, when electric was half the price and we were in no hurry to prep ( after the Soviets fell ), sure, no big deal. I can't be patient now, however. Things are moving too fast. The 2008 Crash Redux is already unfolding. Nor will I buy freeze dried, after the financial hit I just took ( a quarter of my cash money savings ) as described yesterday. I COULD. I'm not completely adverse to buying a dedicated freeze dry machine.

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If I bought the smaller unit for $2k, I could get say a batch a day out of it. Call it two #10 cans worth ( commercial cost $100. My cost for meat, $15, not including Mylar, or bag storage or machine cost ). The machine pays for itself in one stinking month. According to Loving Minion who wrote me, he pre-freezes his trays of food in the regular upright freezer. This knocks 8 hours off the run time, bringing it down to 12-14 only. That means the compressor doesn't die as quick. In the second month of operation, one batch a day, you have another three hundred pounds of meat ( raw weight, not dry weight which is 80% less than raw ).

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That is 600 pounds of meat, for $2,000 machine plus $900 in meat ( assuming $1.50 a pound on sale boneless ). Call it $3,000 or $5 a pound freeze dried. Half the cost of store bought freeze dried, AFTER you bought the machine. Not a bad return, and that assumes you ONLY work it for two months. Working it more, with the occasional additional $300 replacement compressor, and factoring in Mylar and plastic totes, and you should be able to get that $5 down to $3 a pound. Roughly.

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So, buying your own unit definitely pays. If I bought two thousand pounds of meat, and the machine, I have a pound of meat a day for five years. That IS much better than money in the bank. So even if you cannot get “free” freeze dried at home without the machine, it isn't a terrible thing to do it right ( I cannot see freeze drying most vegetables, as most do air dry. You want high cost foods in that high cost machine. I'd of course add butter ).

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Alas, I don't love meat THAT much. I want meat, but I don't want that bill. Buying the machine, you DO take the chance meat prices skyrocket right afterwards. Yes, it will ALWAYS be cheaper doing it yourself compared to commercial product, but if you can't afford as much meat the freeze dry machine costs far more per batch. It is back to beans ( and as soon as the Fall cools things down, more canned butter ) for me. Yes, I know butter is not protein. My body does better going vegetarian with butter, than without, however. That is just me. Now, as far as the beans.

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Forget pinto and lentils. I now recommend The Dreaded Soy. More specifically, soy meal. The oil has been removed in soy meal, and what you essentially have left over is a protein meal that should store for some time ( no oil to go rancid ). Which you can buy at the feed store for about $22 a fifty pound sack. $44 a hundred pounds, almost half the price of any other grocery store bean at its cheapest. Eating one quarter pound a day, you get to almost two thousand calories a day when added to that pound of wheat.

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At $44 a year cost. With a much needed protein boost. Granted, plant protein. But it is as close as you are going to get at this bargain of a price ( and if you go by the vegans preaching, it is a complete amino acid protein ). Now, to it being soy. No, I do NOT want to eat soy, Sam I am. Neither do I want to suffer from a wheat and oil only diet. Adding a bean is better than not, even if soy. It is the lesser evil.

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It is spending $300 rather than $5,000. This is my next priority, before any more ammo or other Plastic Poodle Shooter accessories. Protein is good, and soy is much better than Long Pork. If you can afford freeze dried, all the power to you. If you do your own freeze drying, well, you can be my hero. For those still clinging stubbornly to poverty and frugality, well, embrace your estrogen dose. It really is better than being weak and lethargic and susceptible to sickness from lack of protein.

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On a two thousand calories a day diet, it is recommended you get about 55 grams of protein. Your wheat delivers 6 grams. Now add in a quarter pound of soy. That adds another 41 grams. Not too terrible at all. Especially considering it is a post-apocalypse diet. Be an honorary Soy Boy. But, ironically :)
[ addendum-my feed store only charged $17 a bag.  Suckers!  I thought it strange that Pastor Joe's group paid $17 a bag wheat when they bought 10k pounds in a group buy-mine is $10-$12.  Perhaps I'm just lucky here, being close to ag areas such as the LDS'ers ] 

( .Y. )

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