Freeze dried food question
 

I just opened up my first can of freeze dried potatoes (precooked). They were Provident Pantry diced potatoes. They seemed to have a lot of crushed potatoe dust in the can, a lot more then I would have expected. Is this caused by the contents being shifted around, or is this how they are packaged? I only bought one can so i'm not worried about them, but I am worried that the freeze fruits and vegtables I haven't opened yet are going to be the same way. Is this normal to see tons of powdered contents, and do these freeze dried food cans have to be handled carefully to avoid this? (Sorry i'm new to F.D. food.) Thanks. :smile:

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

Freeze-dried food does powder easily. A lot of the vegetables can be crushed to powder between your fingers. It's probably from the handling of the can.

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

Yikes that sucks. I wish they put a warning on them because I did a lot of turning the cans around earlier, kind of feeling them out to see how much was in them. Crap. CRAP. :banghead:

PS Thanks for the quick response.

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

Freeze dried food is an emergency prep only , and even then little more than caloric sustenance. Do not eat it unless you have to. jmho.

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

???

I think it depends on what was freeze dried. Are you saying things like freeze dried friuts and vegetables have no nutritional value? I've never heard that before, and personally dont think its true. Maybe your refering to some of those prepared meals that are loaded with salt and such. I kept those to a bare minimum.

Anyway I opened some of the strawberry slices that I handled in a similar way as the potato dices. They were fine, basically no dust at all except lining the can. The potatoes had more then a half of a cup of fine powder in a #10 can. I think they are either extra fragile since they are pre-cooked or they are normally just packaged this way. I can't imagine they would crumble this much from a few minutes of handling or they would be instant mashed potatoes within a couple years of being occasionally moved in storage. Maddie, is it unusual to find this much powdered contents in your average can of FD food? I mean should I expect to open up cans of vegetables that I flipped upside down a few times to have tons of powder in them? I hope not. I didn't plan on vegetable pudding when TSHTF. :D

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

Don't worry. In my experience, it isn't usual to find that much powder in a can, and not all FD food powders that badly from casual handling.

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

Cool thanks.

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

Got another question. Do the freeze dried #10 cans hold the same amount of rehydrated contents as the dehydrated ones? It seems like they would contain way, way less since the contents dont shrink when freeze dried. The dehydrated broccoli from waton feed fills the can pretty densely, where as the freeze dried broccolli I just opened is whole pieces that are the same size they will be when rehydrated. The dehydrated ones are not only packed way denser, but they grow more then double in size when rehydrated (even if they are still tiny pieces). Seems like you get 2 or 3 times the amount of actual broccolli from a #10 can with the dehydrated broccolli, this would make the FD ones way more expensive then they seem when comparing just can size and price (plus they would take up a lot more space). Is that right?

Re: Freeze dried food question
 

OK I answered my own question. There does seem to be a lot less actual weight of food in each can, but thats ok i guess because the quality makes up for it (even though it's burning a whole in my wallet.). Anyway Emergency Essentials is having a one day blow out sale on certain items. They have #10 cans of freeze dried green beans for $12 each. Thats $5 of their regular price and comes out to .50 cents a serving. I just picked up two cases (thats the limit.)

Get 'em while you can! :smokin: