Go Local Food Year Round with a Solar Food Dehydrator

Have you gone Local yet? Is not having a garden or any local farmer’s market near you open for the winter is stopping you. One solution is to preserve food that you pick from your garden or from the farmer’s market in the summer to enjoy year round. It will be worth the hassle to not only enjoy healthy eating year round but also knowing that you are doing everything possible to help the environment by reducing your purchase of produce shipped in from thousands of miles away.

Freezing, freeze drying and canning may be the first method you think of and may offer a greater range of options but typically are more time consuming, energy intensive and expensive. Food drying is perhaps the easiest and affordable preservation method and if you make your own solar-powered food dryer it can be even cheaper. For some people electric dryers aren’t as satisfying as drying food with free solar energy, especially ones you make yourself.

This link to a Mother Earth News article that explains you can make your own Solar Food Dryer.

THE SOLAR FOOD DRYER by Eben Fodor $14.95
For more complete instructions and information on making a solar food dryer, you can purchase the book from Mother Earth News.

If you don’t have the time or energy for big do it yourself projects and using electricity off the grid isn’t a problem then you might consider checking out food dehydrators such as the excalibur at canning pantry.com they offer an affordable smaller unit, the excalibur dehydrator 2400 for $109.95
and the excalibur dehydrator 2900 for 209.95, better for families with 9 trays and a total of 15 square feet of drying area.

Canning Pantry also offer a comprehensive book about food drying, recipes and more that might be useful. Preserve It Naturally – 3rd Edition $24.95

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 am and is filed under EcoFriendly, Home and Garden, Solar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.