Improve Survival Food Storage – Oxygen Absorbers and Nitrogen Packing
After meals has been freeze dried what else can be accomplished to maintain it?
The freeze drying method eliminates 98% of the drinking water from food stuff, halting bacterial expansion as effectively as killing bugs and their eggs.
Over and above freeze drying additional to preserve meals and increase shelf life, oxygen is the principal enemy. If the food stuff is saved in a way that it is not uncovered to oxygen, the shelf existence can access 25 to 30 yrs. Shelf lifetime below refers to the food stuff retaining it is properties of dietary worth, taste, and look. It may possibly nonetheless be risk-free to take in outside of this time but the aforementioned qualities are degraded. Oxygen Absorbers
Some freeze dried foods producers use oxygen absorbers to lengthen shelf lifetime.
Oxygen absorbers are products that chemically react with oxygen in the atmosphere they are in, combining with the oxygen and thus eradicating it from that setting. The most normally utilized material for absorbers is iron in the kinds of iron powder or iron carbonate. Each combine with oxygen quite correctly.
At the time oxygen absorbers are uncovered to oxygen they will proceed to react with it until eventually the material is fully “oxidized” which means it can not take in any additional oxygen. For this reason they have to have to be quite very carefully sealed and stored so that they are not consumed in advance of their intended use.
The software in which oxygen absorbers are used for freeze dried foods storage is to location them in the can of food right before it is vacuum sealed.
The notion is that any oxygen that leaks into the sealed container more than years of storage will be absorbed by it, instead than the oxygen reacting with the freeze dried food and degrading it.
There are two types of oxygen absorbers usually made use of. One variety, Multisorb Technologies’ FreshPax Form-B demands some dampness from the surroundings it is in to be present to perform and is employed for moist foodstuff like bread and processed meats. Kind-D absorbers comprise there have moisture source and are so suited to dry foods like freeze dried food stuff.
You could try to remember the old adage Aristotle proclaimed in 350 BC, “nature abhors a vacuum”. So any vacuum packed container will in excess of time be invaded, if at any time so marginally, by the bordering air and with it the 21% of air that is oxygen.
So although the oxygen absorber will prolong the shelf lifestyle by absorbing the oxygen in the air that is existing at first all through packing as nicely as the air that leaks in more than time, eventually the absorber will be “maxed out”, that is it will be thoroughly oxidized and can not take in any much more oxygen.
I have observed the assures for shelf lifetime for this style packed freeze dried food items at 10-15 many years. This period could be a reflection of the restrict of the approach and process controls that the producer of the food employs, as perfectly as that of the oxygen absorber. http://bulk-survival-food.com
Nitrogen Packing
Nitrogen packing or “nitro-pak” on the other hand can take a distinct method to dealing with oxygen “enemy”.
Rather than relying on the houses of the container to combat the invading air seeking to get in, the container is flushed with nitrogen or packed in a nitrogen ecosystem. As a final result the sealed container has the identical or somewhat greater pressure but with nitrogen and not air. This indicates that air is not battling to get in. There is no abhorrence so to communicate.
Hence the interval that the foods continues to be unexposed to significant concentrations of oxygen is much extended and consequently the probable shelf existence is extended.
What is the longest shelf existence for nitrogen packed freeze dried food items?
Mountain Home, the commercial brand name of Oregon Freeze Dry which has been about for about 40 decades, states on their website website with regards to their #10 cans of freeze dried food items
“Our meals will have the longest shelf existence out there…up to 30 years!”
It might be the outcome of superior method controls, not only the nitrogen packing method, that can make them really feel relaxed making this assertion.
There is data on the net on how you can nitro-pak foods on your own with some products but I would be leery of assuming your process regulate would be on the identical par and have the same shelf everyday living.
In any scenario “nitro-pak” freeze dried meals has the longest shelf lifetime for any variety of commercially out there saved meals I have seen.