Ok my dear /diyers/ i went freegan, and i am living off the scraps of upper cast since a month. All is fine and dandy, but I can observe that the food has much shorter shelf life than storebought (duh). I assume that the dumpsterdived food, despite looking good has some spores and bacteria on it that i can't remove using normal washing. Is there some sort of food-safe dissinfectant ( like campden tablets for wine making) that i could bathe vegies and frughts after pre cleaning them?
Any ideas how to prolong shelf life of dumpster dived food?
>>886682
If there was a way to fo that, the transnational food industries would already be doing it, in order to prolong the food's shelf life.
The reason you're seeing the food go off is because *someone threw it in a bin, because it was about to go off*.
>>886689
Wouldn't killing spores and bacteriae help? I was considering tablets with silver for water purification. I know that food that is starting to go off more prone to mold, but maybe removing spores could help, a little. I am heart broken when zuccini gets mold after three days of storage and dies on my before i have chance to munch on it.
try a quick dunk in boiling water
>disinfectant tablets
won't do shit
>Any ideas how to prolong shelf life of dumpster dived food?
cook or freeze them, preferably both.
>>886682
They're decaying, no way to stop the rot.
Best bet is to preserve them by making into something that has a longer self life.
Is there a particular purpose for this? I mean who volunteers to do what homeless people are forced to do?
A few options;
Expose the foodstuffs to ionizing radiation but a personal set up would cost you more than the buying foods fresh.
Then Controlled Atmosphere Storage, again set up would cost more than the food is worth fresh.
>freegan
You mean
>pretending to be homeless for amusement
This is stupid, dangerous, and degrading. I'd rather wear animu-convention-only attire in public than be caught eating dumpster food.
>>886768
Hipsters.
>>886768
people who want to live "off the grid"? people who want to stick it to the man? sort of?
sounds more like an anarchist / hippie thing than a hipster thing, to me.
i do love when somebody posts a "how do i?" thread and 2/3 of the posts are poncey pretentious fucks telling them they shouldn't want to instead of how to.
Anyone who willingly dumpsterdives for food is an embarrassment.
>>886817
>>886682
>anons help! This expired food I got out of the trash goes bad really quick, like the next day or even that night its covered in mold/bacteria!
>>886817
There are people who are willing to reduce waste in our society by using it for what it was made for.
About 33 million tons of food go into our landfills each year. I understand if you don't want to eat food out of the garbage, but why would you look down on someone who is helping to a gap in our ecosystem?
He gets free food, your tax money doesn't have to go to its disposal. Everyone wins.
And OP, I'm not really sure about what you can do with food that's got bacteria on it, but as far as preservation goes, there's plenty of little things you can do.
For milk, you can add a pinch of salt to keep it from spoiling for a little longer.
With fruits or veggies, keep them somewhere ventilated. If you keep them in a bag or jar the humidity will make them rot faster.
If you have dry goods, use airtight jars or bags to keep the humidity out, it'll keep them from going stale sooner. If you have the means, you can also dry fruits to make them last a lot longer.
Also, obviously, if you have the means to freeze things, that's always useful. Most fruits and vegetables can be frozen and stored.
>>886816
People who want to live off the grid should start by getting the fuck off the Internet.
anyone homeless already knows the answer op, you avoid eating the mouldy shit at first but eventually you don't have a choice and you eat it anyway because thats all you can find. you start with the stuff thats only a little mouldy and you convince yourself you are building up a tolerance to it. you pretend you are eating proper food and delude yourself it doesn't taste like its already been eaten.
there are people who are actually homeless and in need who would really appreciate that food
>>886693
Have you ever thought about how you can still get sick from eating rotten meat even after cooking to a safe temperature?
You can prolong the shelf life the traditional ways.
Cooking, namely canning. Basically cooking kills the bacteria and basically resets the clock on the food. Canning keeps it in a controlled environment.
Freezing. If you have the space, find a free chest freezer on CL. Set that bitch to sub zero. Throw food into it.
>>886908
Cooking stops the clock; it doesn't reset it.
Bacteria per se can't harm you. They're just organisms, and you evolved to eat organisms.
It's the toxins that bacteria release into their surroundings that harm you, and cooking doesn't destroy them.
>>886768
Hipsters.
Hipsters are jelly as fuck of hobos.
>>886923
This. Also produce breaks down by it's own mechanisms, when you see mold and whatnot growing on fruit it's often because the fruit let it in. Stuff is meant to go bad, it's just that it become unpalatable to us after it does. You may washoff/kill microbes that are present, but if the fruit or whatever is already breaking down new stuff will just land on it and resume.
OP here. I concluded that there is only one valid option. Dehydrting and vacuum sealing. Canning and fermenting are my second options. Also will be making sauerkraut.
Ferment all your decaying fruits and vegetable and make alcohol, OP.
>>886682
Liquid nitrogen.
>>886853
Chances are that the food op takes would just rot in the garbage. There aren't nearly enough homeless people to eat the masses of food that gets thrown away, so the argument
>duh he steals from homeless people
Is bullshit.
>>886923
No, it resets the clock. Cooking chicken will kill the bacteria currently on it. Bacteria will find it's way back to it though. That why cooked food can also go bad.
Bleach solution.
>>886693
>I was considering tablets with silver for water purification.
how much do these cost?
Also don't eat any kind of meat unless you find it still frozen. Even if it's cold when you find it, don't risk it.
>>886835
>People who want to live off the grid should start by getting the fuck off the Internet.
/thread
>>887710
I used to eat out of the dumpster at times. There are a few stores in my area that would regularly throw out huge quantities of frozen meat. Biggest find was about 100 lbs of chicken nuggets.
>>886835
why?. i think it´s not neccesary. it´s like saying people who want to live off the grid should get out or nothing.
>>887758
Pretty much. If you say you're "off grid", then get the fuck off the grid.
If you want to become more self reliant, then do what you do.
