I see all of these educational guides on how to dry food so it lasts for years without spoiling.
Most of them will tell you to use a dehydrator or dry food in the sun.
You probably already knew that you can dry leaves to store them for a long time.
But almost any food can be dried.
Vegetable leaves, apples, and meat can be dried and stored for over a year.
Drying food in a dehydrator is simple. You put food in a dehydrator, you turn dehydrator on and dehydrator dries the food.
If you happen to have no dehydrator, then they say you can take food outside and dry food in the sun.
But if it happens to be a rainy day, you can dry food indoors without a dehydrator.
Lets first look at how to speed up drying.
First, you need to cut food in very small pieces.
The smaller the pieces, the faster they dry.
Simple science.
After cutting food in tiny pieces, simply spread pieces so that pieces dont touch each other.
When pieces dont touch each other, they take up more space, but they dry faster.
They will be dried in less than a week in room temperature.
The disadvantage of this method is that it takes a lot of space to dry food.
Some food needs to be cut to very small pieces.
The advantage is that food is dried indoors without a dehydrator.
This dried food can simply be put in a jar and it can last for a year or more without going bad.
You can dry almost anything: insects, vegetables, snails, fruit, edible wild plants, leaves...
To our ancestors, the discovery of drying food was important. It saved food from being spoiled and allowed the creation of long lasting supplies.
Drying food makes food easier to eat, since it shrinks in size.
Plants can be dried on small piles, but the larger the pile of plants the slower it dries. Too large, and it spoils.
This knowledge can be helpful if you find yourself in need to store food, but you dont have a dehydrator.
In our next chapter, we will unify gathering food in the wild with drying and storing that food.
