If you dehydrate you won food how long is the shelf life for?…whats the best way to pakage it? Any good tips?…thanks for your help!
Anthony
Shelf life - Appalachian Trail
system
#2
I don’t profess to be any kind of expert, but I dried a whole lot of food for my 2002 thruhike with my husband.
After I dried the food, I packed everything I could in vacuum sealed bags, some with an O2 absorber and some without. The foods that tended to puncture the vacuum bags (some dry food has sharp edges) I ended up putting in freezer ziplock baggies with an O2 absorber. I stored everything in the freezer, hoping to help things last for the needed 6-7 onths, and then a family member pulled stuff out and shipped it to us during our hike.
All of our left-over dehydrated goodies still taste just fine, 17 months later, and we’ll be using up some more of them when we hit the trail for a couple weeks in September.
We tried to use up anything with dehydrated meat within 6-9 months, but I’m sure the few items we have with meat are still fine.
When dehydrated foods are kept at room temp, they will probably have a shelf life of closer to 3-6 months, according to a couple books I read last year.
There’s a really good book called Lip Smackin’ Back Packin’ that has great recipes for high cal-low weight food, and the portion sizes are for thruhiker appetites. Some of it is dehydrated, some not, but lots of good food. There are a few dehydrated salad-type meals that we made and really liked. (Chicken Curry Salad, etc). Cherry-Walnut Cous Cous Porridge is great for breakfast, too.
Good luck!
Chipper