hankpac

You have had two (at least) posts above explain in some detail that freeze drying at home is impractical. You are talking equipment that costs thousands of dollars, as well as resources like bulk nitrogen, compressed storage, moving atmospheres under pressure from tank to chamber, evacuating large chambers to hundreds of pounds of vacuum. It takes a large industrial setting. Still wanna buy the equipment? Go to Oregon Freeze dried foods, and talk to them. I am sure you will get all the info you need. Oregon Freeze Dry, Inc. Lyophilization, freeze dryer, toll dryer, freeze drying, toll drying, freeze dried, Lyophilization Processor/Manufacture of freeze dried materials, such as pharmaceutical chemicals, medical devices, sensitive biological's, and

At first I thought this was going to be an ad for Sta-Bil, which I use faithfully, but it turned out to be a very valuable post full of good info. Based on your information then, buying a machine that is intended to be used on propane or multifuel, is preferential to buying a conversion kit, since the conversion kit means not only a drop in fuel cost but a drop in generating capacity. There are large gen sets (houshold) with instant start, full shrouded boxes, and an automatic switch that isolates the house from the service lines so you don't shock the lineman, that run on propane. I guess I need a larger area to set it then. Thanks for the good info. Keep using Sta Bil. Love that stuff.

Canning meats. so we don't hijack the butter thread. I will start it, and I will post what I have there.

We can peas, green beans, carrots, beets, corn, Spinach and other greens, tomatoes, berries. You can also pickle then pressure can veges. Read the Ball, Kerr or mason books, for technique, and equipment. If you have a pressure canner you can can meats as well. Just don't try to can butter, the recipe above is dangerous. I would have to actually SEE the books being referred to regarding a church prohibition for canning. I think this is spurious (that means I don't believe it).

IMNSHO, You can use non-sealing lids if all your bags are airtight. However, why BUY buckets, when you can talk to your donut bakery, and get all of theirs for free? If you live in a larger town, you will have several bakeries, so ask around until you find someone who wants to get rid of them. Use only buckets that have been used for food, bakery items especially: Pickles and meats and other stinky items will NOT wash out. I mostly use frosting buckets. Mice may not bother, but rats WILL eat through plastic, especially if it smells like food. If you have ANY rats or mice or other rodents GET THEM OUT. Rats harbor fleas, which carry bubonic plague (8 cases in Los Angeles two years ago) and mice urinate on everything, which is how they transmit Hanta Virus (which is deadly). If they have gotten in for a short term, clean all surfaces including outsides of all cans with 1. industrial strength cleaner/disinfectant, then 2. wipe with a bleach soaked rag, changing the bleach often. Wear and dispose of rubber gloves. Bags which you have opened should be stored elsewhere (reseal or roll and clip or put in a tupperwear), not in the bucket, since insects (ants, silverfish, weevils) can pass the Non-sealing lids. If you are going to BUY cans consider the metal cans (the 5 gal green metal cans), since rodents and such cannot eat their way through.

What Sugarcane is describing is freezer burn, not freeze drying. Part of a true freeze dry is pulling a hard vacuum. This is what causes the frozen water to sublimate. this article is really poor method as described. Cryto: MRE's are NOT freeze dried OR dehydrated. they are cooked, and placed in a hermetically sealed "retort pouch". A retort pouch is a plastic bag that allows heating in the pouch by boiling or microwave. The food is fully cooked in the pouch so can be eaten cold. Goof: "Cool" water meant: Neat, keen, sharp, Out of sight, remarkable, outstanding. It is a heater that you put water into, and it reacts by creating heat. Slip the retort pouch inside, and it gets your food hot, without flame. For full info on freeze drying, go to "www.ofd.com" which is the home page of Oregon Freeze Dry, the makers of mountain house. BTW, Nitrogen is not part of the freezing or drying process. NTG is flushed into a can before sealing to make sure to displace any oxygen. This stops oxidation, and prevents hatching of weevils or other insects, and retards aerobic bacteria action. It is an inert gas. The person who started this thread may by now realize that having water in addition to food is not in fact unusual. It is a requirement, no matter WHAT kind of foods you store. Even fully hydrated whole foods will require a storage of water for personal hydration usage. That is what makes a thoroughly rounded out emergency and long term storage plan.

Several topics brought up here. We have a 30 ft Travel Trailer that is always stocked, and topped off with propane, and on the charger. We also have two generators. We have a large chest type freezer, but it is empty, as we have rotated out of that type of storage, long ago. I don't use any open flame inside the house without adequate ventilation. Notice that although you can cook with a propane or natural gas stove, that you are strongly warned against just running the flame to heat a room. It'll flat kill you in a trailer. People have been asphyxiated in tents using butane stoves. WE have adequate freeze dried foods to carry us for a week without cooking, then caned and instant foods that require heating, and then into our raw dry pack foods that require a lot of processing. At that point we will either be in a new area, with the means to prepare these more complicated foods or the emergency is over. We lived on our food storage for almost a year when I went back to school with a wife and two kids, and one on the way. I thank God for a frugal well prepared wife, who knew how to do all this. A regular vacuum sealer will seal mylar bags. You can reseal chip bags, and that is the same thing. re-use the mylar bags and re-seal them until empty. If you don't have access to 6 gal tins, (the green ones all the older Mormons have) just use the free plastic pails at your donut shop. I give them an opener that leaves the lid intact, and they give me all the buckets I need. If you have to drive 100 miles to the Bishop's storehouse, you are in the same situation as I am. I obtain orders from the ward, and take my truck, and have everyone chip in on my fuel. However, that is just to obtain raw materials, the Ward can get the dry pack canner and the sealer and mylar bags on rotation from the Stake. That should be a minimum of fuss, and travel. Check prices at the suppliers who ship, and see if it is less to order and ship to you, than to drive, even with people sharing fuel. I brought a ton and a half of supplies on the last run, it cost 78 dollars for fuel, and I paid about 20 dollars for my share of the fuel. We divided it up according to how much weight each person had, rather than dividing it across the board. I am shifting all my 5 gal buckets over to # 10 cans, in boxes, using the Stake's canner. I am saving the 6 gal cans for some future possible use. I use mouse bait, in the garage (I don't store any food out there, I just don't want them out there) and in the sheds, and the storage area. So far no problems. We constantly use from our storage, and replace some each month. Just bought some butter with a 10 year shelf life.

People who wish to trans-gender are mentally ill. They clearly have a warped or dysfunctional sense of personal physical image. You are not required to stay in a marriage where you were essentially misled. Since you have no kids, you would be very much ahead to divorce, or to obtain an annulment. Get the annulment, get on with your life. At 22 you have your whole life ahead of you, and still need to get your education behind you. Don't tie yourself down with trying to "fix him" it won't happen. Women torment themselves with trying to "fix" someone, thinking if they just love them enough every thing will be alright. It won't. This guy is a betrayer of what you were promised at the altar. If your pants were on fire, would you stay in them? "Oh but they are my best pants..." They're on fire. "But they're my best pants" They are on fire. "but if I just hold out..." So she ends up with a blistered hiney, no pants, and naked to the world.

Start by reading the Book of Mormon over and over again. Become able to quote scripture appropriate to any situation. Quoting a scripture that applies to a situation is pretty cool anyway, but when you quote from the BOM, and the person hearing it says, "Oh yeah, I heard that before"." It opens the door for you. Most of the time, they actually haven't heard it before, they wouldn't even realize when you say 1st Nephi, that it isn't a book of the Bible. it sure opens the door, and gives you an advantage. Try it, I am not kidding. Second thing, a little harder for shy people, especially when you consider that almost no one, shy or not ever does this: BEAR YOUR TESTIMONY! As an example, someone says "I am thinking of going back to school" You can say, "The Prophet has taught us that education is important, and I have a testimony that this is deep and abiding truth." Simpler than most people think. I can tell you that no one will reject your testimony. Ever.

guys get too competitive in VG's and most games are pretty violent. I can't believe some of the games I have seen in "good" Mormon's homes.

the food grade and size I was talking about was the larger (3 gal or 5 gal) size that is used for a water cooler. Easier to handle, manageable if you have to carry it away. the three gallon is easier to handle than the 5, for changing. the source I was speaking of is the quarter coin op dispenser. I have seen the windmill type as cheap as 10 cents a gallon, so fillingall the containers at once is still pretty cheap. the Windmill brand has several filters, uses RO, and a ultraviolet light. You CAN buy a home system, RO and etc, but it is quite expensive. Our Ward building has it's own well, and the water is tested. Pure and crystalline, with no taste. I fill my trailer there, before camping, and everyone who uses a water dispenser fill bottles out there. As to the Brita: Yes I was speaking of the system instructions. You should be able to get them on-line at the company site. Look under "support". Basically, the filter uses a sponge-ike or charcoal filter, so you don't want to run anything through it that will leave a taste or odor. If the top part is just plastic and metal parts, soak it in soapy water with a bit of bleach in it, and rinse very well. No prob. Storing 50 Gal drums of water is problematical: I store two 55 gal plastic food grade barrels. I use a pump to run water out into the 3 gallon containers. The pumps are available on-line. there are lots and lots of types, so choose one you like. and pump, food grade, battery powered, crank-type, lots of choices. Or you can mount them on their sides, in a rack, fill them from the small hole, and put a tap in the large hole. Run a hose to your use site, and you can cut a lot of carrying. Let gravity do the work. the elemental Iodine I mentioned before is best for large amounts of water, since adding enough bleach to that much water will leave a taste, and it has to be treated again and again, eventually having a really strong taste. and salty too boot. Remember that the goal is to prevent algae and bacteria growth. Yoiu could be playing with water chemistry like a pool manager if yoiu really want to elongate the length of time a single filling will sit in the drums. Weight is a real consideration. You cannot take the drums to a water source, fill them and move them back to your storage site, easily. In fact it is almost impossible. A single drum will weigh almost 459 pounds (55 gal X 8.345 lbs per gallon). If you cycle it through in a few weeks you really don't have to do anything to it. By the way, this is all assuming yo are not going to just fill from your tap. Tap water is pretty good, but it has lots of chemicals. Chlorine is not the only thing, plus you have pipes of various ages, and the huge tanks on the hill where it comes from, all in various stages of sanitation. Lots of municipalities use a diver to clean the tank, he scrapes around the walls, to cut the algae and he doesn't come up each time he has to urinate. Old pipes have a buildup of lots of chemicals that have leached out over the years. the lumen (the hole in the pipe) will be quite narrow (like an artery with cholesterol). I mention that since I am not sure what your source of water is. My town has pretty poor tasting water. It has a lot of iron. Fill a tub with it, and it is brown. So we only drink water we get at the Ward Building. Your town may have the same, so you need to check it at the municipal utility that manages it. They put out an annual report that measures al that, and it is free at the water dept or city hall. and seek a supply of clean water. I hope I have answered your questions. If I made any mistakes I am sorry, but I hope you will be inspired to really look into this someplace besides an internet forum. The info is out there. Good luck. Hank

Bleach is sodium Hypochlorite. It degrades to water. and salt. A few drops in a bottle to remove scents is just fine, and rinse it out thoroughly. Your Brita needs cleaning, and a thin solution of bleach will PROBABLY be just fine. Read the directions first. Plastic water bottles are probably not the greatest method of storage for your water. First of all, tap water has chlorine in it anyway, along with other contaminants. A larger food grade bottle is better, and obtaining it from a filtered, reverse osmosis source with ultraviolet light sterilization is best. You can use Halozone tabs (military water tabs) to sterilize water from unsecure sources, but it tastes pretty bad. Most hard core survivalists are using elemental Iodine, which is great, has an infinite shelf life, and works perfectly. One thought about the residual taste. it's not an entirely bad thing. After drinking plain water day after day, the palate craves a bit of flavor. in the war we used Wylers lemonade, and pre-sweetened Koolade, and in later years Gatorade. A slight fruit flavor would not be too bad. Your going to be picking bugs out of your wheat according to most of the posters on the wheat thread anyway. You cannot use a bleach bottle for storing drinking water, but you can use it to flush toilets and wash kids. The plastic grade is the issue, and the dose of residual bleach is far too much than what a gallon of water requires (4 drops remember?). But for washing hands that are going to handle foods? Perfect.

btt I added some solid info to my last post. Of course there are always people who will say they know better. After 25 years practicing medicine, I learned (early on) that the phrase "In my experience..." means a limited scope of information, and too lazy to check the resources of info available.

I once heard a young lady agonizing over what to do for a first date: She didn't want to eat since she felt like she was obliged to get just a sald, or look like a pig, and she didn't want to go to a movie since you just sit there in the dark and don't get to know the person. She never came up with a satisfying idea, although I suggested a group date like bowling and/or supper at a dinner theater place. Like a mystery or comedy dinner theater. Any other ideas. Oh, I didn't get my wife flowers on the first date, but I do all the time since, and grow lots of flowers for her. I used to send flowers to her work all the time, and got her an orchid corsage for our dates.

Pick up a bird book, and do some reading before hand. Peterson's or Sibley's are the best. Both if you get into it. do some heavy reading, then take an early morning walk in the park or the woods, taking the book with you. 8 power binocs, and you are set. You can do most bird-watching with eyes alone, so it is dirt cheap. Great date.

My wife and I finished school before having kids, and even took summer long time off to ourselves. We firmly cemented our relationship. Then we started having kids. Then I went to school two more times. Anyway, there is no reason to feel bad that you want things to be in better shape before having kids. And don't have kids just because everyone else has them. they aren't going to raise your kids or pay your bills or nurse them in the middle of the night. You are. doing something because everyone else is doing it is juvenile and at 24 you are supposed to be motivated by much more adult passions than that. Enjoy school, enjoy freedom, enjoy getting to know your husband. finish the load of seeking work, and setting up your career path, and getting settled into whatever part of the country you are going to live in. One day you will find out you are pregnant. My wife had her first baby at 25. She had her 3d and last at 29. And now that they are out on their own, and old friend and I are back together full time. All those things we used to like to do, that we really enjoyed when there was just the two of us, we do again. And have just as much fun. I know you are hearing the clock ticking, but you still have time to hit the snooze a couple of times.

Hi, I thought I would intro myself. I live in eastern Oregon, am a retired Physician Assistant, and have been around a bit. I have already posted in my strong areas of food storage, and preparedness in general. I am currently serving as Ward Clerk, and coordinating preparedness and food storage. We just hauled a huge load of food from the Bishop's Storehouse. This seems like a good site. thanks\ Hank\

OK, your question sounds like you are starting at the most simple of beginnings. You have product but don't know how to store it or what resources are available. I will approach from this basis. The ward has available to it on a Stake level both a can sealer for # 10 cans (which are available empty and new at the Bishop's storehouse), and a bag sealer for mylar bags. Obtain used but food grade and intact plastic buckets from a local bakery. Ask in advance for them to NOT cut the lids and buy them a lid lifter that will take lids off intact. Cheap investment. Now: Mylar bags are great. They make packaging simple and allow you to package items in smaller amounts, so you can easily retrieve them from a larger container. Mylar bags of product inside a 5-6 gallon tin container is nearly perfect form of storage: the rats or mice cannot chew through the tin, the mylar bag is impervious to gas migration and with a quick squirt of CO2, and an oxygen disc, are very stable. You can seal them with a vacuum food saver, so that extends the product life even more. Finally, in a flood, the product will float, and NOT be ruined. Next: plastic buckets. These are great too, but have a couple of draw backs. The lids are hard to lift, when full a 5 gallon bucket is heavy, and if a woman or child retrieves a heavy bucket from the storage area, and at the top of a stack of buckets, they tend to set it down hard, which over time can cause the bucket to crack on a bottom edge or in the center of the bottom, which may pass un-noticed. The crack can allow product to sift out, bugs like ants to get in, and attracts larger pests like mice, which can chew through plastic bucket sides. Still buckets are useful, and I still use them for much of my bulk product. I also squirt CO2 into these, for all beans and grains, and pastas. #10 cans: All dry product can g o into #10 cans, and using the church's sealing tools, they are an excellent means of storage. Box, and mark each 6 cans, so you know what is inside. You can do this also at the Storehouse, since they have the tools there for everything. A can is 58 cents, the lid is 13 cents, plastic lid is 8 cents, and the box is 57 cents. they are usually sold as a package, so get a box and two plastic lids for every 6 cans and lids. Oxygen absorbers: these are plastic discs that contain powdered iron filings. This reacts with the oxygen in the air in a can to oxidize and bind oxygen. That's all it does, it does not pull a vacuum, it does not absorb ALL of the air, nor does it sanitize or do anything else. The reason to bind oxygen is solely to keep weevils from hatching. Almost ALL grains and ground grain has weevil eggs in it. CO2 will do the same thing. It is heavier than air, displaces air, dries moisture, and prevents weevils from hatching. Product that has hatched weevils is ruined. It is NOT extra protein, as some people will say. It is only edible if you are in a starvation situation. CO2: Available at welding shops: rent a big H tank, with a hose, regulator, and a nozzle with a 16" extension tube on the end, to poke down into product. Don't try it on powdered products! POOF! When taking out product from buckets with CO2, don't pour, dip carefully, so you don't slosh the CO2 out, and it will sit in the bucket just fine, until emptied. CO2 is heavier than air. Pretty cool! Keep your product stored inside the house, so there are not huge swings in temperature. Keep it at least as cool as 70 degrees, and preferably cooler. Heat is far worse, than freezing. Treat all containers gently. Inspect old containers when shifting them around to obtain buckets on the bottom of stacks. Be creative when deciding where to keep stuff, and write it down! Inventory everything. Rotate product: Depending on your budget, you can rotate everything so that nothing is older than 5 years. That is, you will always be eating 5 year old food, and buying and storing a little bit each month. Watch for sales, and bargains, buy more than you figure you need, and consult charts to know how much you're targeted to have for your group. Yes, you may print this out.

I am already out of chickens and goats.

Download the entire document, then put it on a CD. Ink costs too much, and 222 pages, wow. Write to the people originating: there is a LDS version available to Bishops for 15 dollars.

Under the beds is a great place to store food. There is space behind the couch, and behind the TV. Also in the upper parts of cabinets, and in dressers. The garage is hot, and has too many temperature swings which shortens the life of foods in any storage format (dried, canned freeze dried, whatever form). A storage unit is worse, because it is away from your house, and also is subject to temp swings, and due to monthly cost represents a constant bite into the value of what you have stored. It would be better to customize your food storage to your needs: iow: far more freeze dried, and far less wheat. Wheat is great if yoiu have the physical plant to utilize it. without grinders, and supporting food-stuffs (like salt and sugar and yeast, and an oven that you can use WITHOUT electricity) it is just heavy and poorly usable. On the other hand, Freeze Dried foods, can be eaten with just adding water, or even dry. the water doesn't have to be hot to rehydrate FD foods, so you can just soak it, and let it sit for 20 minutes while you change the baby, and get the older kids cleaned up, and viola, you are ready to eat. Eat what you store, store what you eat, of course, but every single food item you store has to have an active thought with it when you put it on the list to purchase: "How am I going to put this to use?" That means, How will I feed it to the kids, with no electricity and how will I carry it 5 miles on foot, and what do I have to have to support this food item in order to feed it to someone? I have talked with many people about storing wheat (which I have a LOT of) I ask them: "why do you have wheat?" "So we can make bread." "Have you ever made bread before?" "No" Or "what else do you have to make bread besides this unground wheat?" "Uhhh." Or "Can you make bread without electricity, or without an oven or sitting in your back yard?" Apply that kind of thinking to ALL of your preparedness.

The MRE Depot has canned butter with a long shelf life. I am not sure I would try to do my own canning of butter, and we can food every year. Smiling Redhead: Canning is done either by either of two methods:water bath (high acid foods like tomatoes) which takes foods up to past boiling, then as it cools, the jar pulls a vacuum, and the lid snaps sealed, while the rubber ring under the lid melts to form a tight seal. Good for storing garden products, about two years max: calls for some equipment. Pressure: using a large pressure jars of cooked or raw foods are placed in the jars with lids, and pressured to a certain temp and pressure for a certain time, (according to a reference book) then set a side to cool and seal. This is the method for low acid foods and meats. It is how all of your store bought canned products are produced. If "No one" you know is doing this, your area has very poor skill sets, and you are NOT prepared for even a modicum of inconvenience. Here is what the National Center For Home Food Preservation has to say about home canning butter. 1st the link, then the text: National Center for Home Food Preservation | Canning FAQs Should I use directions for canning butter at home that I see on the Internet? Indeed, there are some directions for 'canning' butter in circulation on the Internet. Most of what we have seen are not really canning, as they do not have Boiling Water or Pressure Canning processes applied to the filled jar. Jars are preheated, the butter is melted down and poured into the jars, and the lids are put on the jars. Some directions say to put the jars in the refrigerator as they re-harden, but to keep shaking them at regular intervals to keep the separating butter better mixed as it hardens. This is merely storing butter in canning jars, not ‘canning’. True home canning is when the food is heated enough to destroy or sufficiently acid enough to prevent growth of all spores of Clostridium botulinum (that causes botulism) and other pathogens during room temperature storage on the shelf. Additionally, when you consider the economics of the process (energy costs involved with heating, cost of jars and lids, etc.), even if the butter is bought on sale, it may not be economically viable to prepare butter to store for years in this manner. Good quality butter is readily available at all times, if butter is needed for fresh use. If the concern is about emergency food supplies, there are dry forms of butter that can be purchased and stored, oils that can be used in an emergency, or commercially canned butter in tins (although we have only seen this for sale from other countries). Melted and re-hardened butter may not function the same as original butter in many types of baking anyway. There are a few issues with the common directions circulating on the Internet at this time (Spring 2006): Physical safety and food quality: In the provided directions, the jars are preheated in an oven (dry-heat), which is not recommended for canning jars. Manufacturers of canning jars do not recommend baking or oven canning in the jars. It is very risky with regard to causing jar breakage. There is no guarantee that the jars heated in this dry manner are sufficiently heated to sterilize them, as we do not have data on sterilizing jar surfaces by this dry-heating method. The butter is not really being 'canned'; it is simply being melted and put in canning jars, and covered with lids. Due to some heat present from the hot melted butters and preheated jars, some degree of vacuum is pulled on the lids to develop a seal. It rarely is as strong a vacuum as you obtain in jars sealed through heat processing. The practice in these 'canned' butter directions is referred to as 'open-kettle' canning in our terminology, which is really no canning at all, since the jar (with product in it) is not being heat processed before storage. Although mostly fat, butter is a low-acid food. Meat, vegetables, butter, cream, etc. are low-acid products that will support the outgrowth of C. botulinum and toxin formation in a sealed jar at room temperature. Low-acid products have to be pressure-canned by tested processes to be kept in a sealed jar at room temperature. It is not clear what the botulism risk is from such a high-fat product, but to store a low-acid moist food in a sealed jar at room temperature requires processing to destroy spores. A normal salted butter has about 16-17% water, some salt, protein, vitamins and minerals. Some butter-like spreads have varying amounts of water in them. We have no kind of database in the home canning/food processing arena to know what the microbiological concerns would be in a butter stored at room temperature in a sealed jar. In the absence of that, given that it is low-acid and that fats can protect spores from heat if they are in the product during a canning process, we cannot recommend storing butter produced by these methods under vacuum sealed conditions at room temperature. Some other directions do call for 'canning' the filled jars of butter in a dry oven. This also is not 'canning'. There is not sufficient, research-based documentation to support that 'canning' any food in a dry oven as described on this web page or any page that proposes oven canning is even sufficient heating to destroy bacteria of concern, let alone enough to produce a proper seal with today's home canning lids. In conclusion, with no testing having been conducted to validate these methods, we would NOT recommend or endorse them as a safe home-canning process, let alone for storing butter at room temperature for an extended period. We do know that the methods given for preheating empty jars, or even filled jars, in a dry oven are not recommended by the jar manufacturers or by us for any food. Aside from the physical safety and quality issues, and the fact that it is not canning at all, if there happened to be spores of certain bacteria in there, these procedures will not destroy those spores for safe room temperature storage.

This is my first post here. I am a member of the Church living in Oregon. The main differences between Freeze Dried and Dehydrated (and MRE): Freeze dried as explained above, is made by completely cooking a food product, then placing it in a nitrogen atmosphere, to both freeze and dry the product to really cold temps, not attainable by ordinary methods, then the product (which is already bagged) is vacuumed, to near-space values, to remove all air from the bag, and sealed. Shelf life of a freeze dried product in a # 10 can is up to 20 years. In a vacuum bag, about 10 years, and in a non-evacuated bag about 5 years. Dehydrated foods are dried using heat. There is some moisture, and some loss of food value in the process, and tey do not last as long at freeze dried by several orders of magnitude. MRE's are completely cooked product, that are then sealed in a "Retort Pouch" the temps are taken pretty high, and are similar to canning. MRE's can last up to 5 years if kept quite cool, but a few days at 100% and you have only months to use them, maybe less. http://longlifefood.com/images/mre_storage_chart.gif Dehydrated foods are hard and need to be moistened to eat, but even freeze dried foods can be eaten right out of the bag. A little crunchy, but I have done it. The ice cream is great that way. MRE's can be eaten cold. Freeze Drying is not a process you can do at home. Check out Oregon House Freeze Dried foods, for lots of info on how they do their products. BTW, Dried, Dehydrated, Freeze Dried, MRE (cooked, and retort packaged), and canned whole are all complementary, and should ALL be a part of a complete home storage package.