At first glance it seems like it’s “NEW stuff”, but over four decades ago I had my first introduction to the ‘newness’ of freeze dried food. It was way ahead of its time for the crowd I was in, and we had a hard time wrapping our minds around the concept. And the price? – it was really expensive. But it remained in the back of my mind, and the next time I was introduced to it some years later, I was a little more receptive and bought some. I still didn’t really get it though. Flash forward another decade or two, and I came across it again – this time more open minded.
The big attraction for me was the long shelf life – 20 years they claimed back in the day. And there’s a reason they call it “space food”, because it is to the Space industry that we owe the modern development of this food science. The space industry needed a food that was:
1. highly nutritious
2. had an exceptionally long shelf life
3. could be consumed without water
4. was easy to prepare
5. was appealing to the taste, with good variety potential
Good job people! You did it.
But still, its a long journey from a space station to the average kitchen, and though it was inevitable it would make that journey, people tend to take a long time to transition from ‘normal-to-new’. Good thing we had over half a century because that’s about as long as its taken us to get to this point.
But freeze dried food is not as ‘new’ as most people think. The popular breakfast cereal “Special K” used freeze dried berries as far back as 1955! And we didn’t even know it, or think about it. We just liked it.
And food storage isn’t new either of course; for generations, its been a way of life in North America. But traditionally that food storage consisted of grains, legumes and canned fruit, vegetables and meats – with an increasingly understood limited shelf life, and greatly diminished food value. As the year 2000 (and the accompanying Y2K scare) approached, and the technological world was preparing for a massive upset, people started being a lot more interested in things like food storage. At the time, we owned a niche bookstore – Generations Bookstore – in Edmonton, and one of our major sidelines focused on helping people get their food storage together, but we had a heckuva time finding good sources of good shelf stable food. We could find tools, and equipment like wheat grinders, but actual food? Not so easy. We kept looking and we tried whatever we could find, and some were ‘pretty’ good, although none of them really stood out. Until 2008! That was the year one of our Canadian vendors (In Case Of), phoned me up and told me they had just discovered the BEST Freeze Dried Food on the market. They were very excited about it, and since we had a good working relationship built on trust – I took them at their word. In January 2009, we began carrying THRIVE LIFE freeze dried fruits and vegetables in our retail store. We started small – with ten cases to begin with, one case each of their top ten best sellers. Every month we added one or two more items till soon we carried whatever we could get across the border. No meat. No dairy. No pantry cans, only family sized cans.
In the meantime, at home – we were going through a bit of a purge where it came to our own food storage. Items that had gotten out dated – due to poor rotation. As our youngest prepared to leave on his mission for two years, I prepared to STOP buying groceries until we “ate our food storage down“. Luke left on July 7, 2009. The first Sunday after, when the married kids came for dinner they were surprised to see not the usual fare, but instead – comfort foods they grew up on. When they asked about it, I told them “Welcome back to your childhood. We’re gonna eat food storage until we get control again and I could use your help.” We had a garden, so its not like we didn’t have fresh produce, but with little exception – I avoided grocery stores. I’m not going to go into details about how long it took us, but gradually shelves started to clear, and we used up what we had on hand.
It was provident that I was starting to discover “good” freeze dried foods right about that time. My mind was open and I was looking for better options. By the end of 2011, THRIVE LIFE launched a different platform in Canada. They no longer retailed in stores, but went the route of direct sales – making it easier for people to try the foods in their own homes, learning about it in a hands-on way. It was kind of an exciting time as a whole new industry broke ground in Canada. Yes, there were other freeze dried food companies – through the store we had experimented with several of them, but nothing like this! Nothing that could touch the quality of Thrive Life.
But still the mystery remained for many people – What exactly is it? HOW to USE it? and HOW to incorporate it into their daily lives? And why should they want to? How to understand and appreciate the value of it? I learned about a lot of people’s reluctance to use freeze dried food with my experience in the store. Because of the 25 year shelf life, they were tempted to make a lump purchase and then forget about it. 25 years sounded like a lifetime away. Customers would brag that they had a lot of freeze dried food already in their food storage. I knew the food they referred to. It was the same type I had purchased many years ago too, in its earliest days. Many strides have been made since those early days.
I would then ask my customers “How do you like it?” And the answer was always the same – as if we followed a script.
“I don’t know. We never use it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s food storage! And besides that – I don’t know what to do with it anyway.”
“How long have you had it?”
“We got it the year after we were married.”
“How long have you been married?”
“37 years.”
“Wow. You know its 12 years past the expiration date right? When were you planning on figuring out how to use it?”
THAT is something I have a hard time making sense out of. If you don’t USE your food storage, eventually it gets outdated and you have to throw it away – that’s a lot of wasted money. Throwing food in the garbage is the same as throwing cash money in the garbage. There’s gotta be a better way.
I am all about Food Storage
From the beginning I’ve been all in! In every way. I’ve seen our family benefit and be free from want and worry many times because of our food storage. It used to look like grains, beans, honey, oil, canned food, frozen food and dehydrated food. It looked like wheat grinders, pasta makers, juicers, canners and dehydrators. It looks like a garden, fruit trees and grocery stores. Everything has its place. In my situation, freeze dried food came a little late to the party, but it introduced variety, quality, nutrition and a long shelf life that wasn’t possible without it. Food Storage requires an open mind to embrace new ways of doing things. It requires commitment and looking at the bigger picture. It requires effort and continuous learning. It requires STORING what we eat, and EATING what we store.
That one principle – essential to a successful food storage is one that cannot be ignored. But still, freeze dried food is new to most of us, and it requires some effort to get familiar with it. How to help people overcome their reticence to embrace something so new – no matter how good it is? Thrive Life quickly understood that consumers needed experience! Tutelage to develop confidence. So they came up with an excellent strategy, an ‘experiment’ to introduce a variety of freeze dried foods, help the cook learn about them and USE them in every day cooking. The goal? To experience using the new food in combination with fresh ingredients common in the average kitchen – to make good tasting, appealing MEALS. Brilliant! They called it a CHEF PACK.
The first one to kick off the experiment was SOUTHWEST CHICKEN. It contained 9 pantry sized cans of different foods including a meat, some vegetables, fruits, and other ingredients as well as several recipe cards to use the contents of the box to make family sized entrees and side dishes. By USING this pack, following the recipes – the cook would learn how easy it is to merge freeze dried ingredients with more common household ingredients to prepare great dishes the family would surely love. And it worked! That Experience went over beautifully, and customers asked for more. It was originally intended as a stand alone package, but some of life’s greatest discoveries come to us in unintended ways – life’s happy accidents. And demand was for more like it.
There are now THREE Chef Packs, each coming with 5-7 recipes cards and enough freeze dried ingredients to make several entrees and side dishes.
Three options to choose from:
Southwest Chicken – Ground Beef – Pulled Pork
what’s in them?
The Ground Beef Chef Pack contains enough freeze-dried ingredients to make:
Hearty Calzone
Italian Baked Penne
Loaded Refried Beans
Shepherd’s Pie
Weeknight Tacos
Vegetable Medley
The Pulled Pork Chef Pack will allow you to make:
Sweet and Sour Pulled Pork with Rice
Open-Faced Pulled Pork Sandwich
Pulled Pork Shepherd’s Pie
Pork Chile Verde
Spanish Rice
Steamed Green Beans with Red Peppers
Loaded Mashed Potatoes
And the Southwest Chicken Chef Pack contains the ingredients to make:
Chicken Fajitas
Zesty Black Beans
Green Chili & Sweet Corn Brown Rice
Tortilla Soup
Corn & Cheddar Biscuits
Chicken Pasta Skillet
Effortless Queso Dip
So if it’s so good, why don’t I freeze dry myself?
I’ve been asked that a LOT over the last few years – and its a reasonable question given my propensity toward self reliance and home-made options whenever possible. Yes, I garden. Yes I preserve the excess of what we grow. That means freezing, dehydrating and canning. And I seriously believe that what I “put up” is as good as, or superior in quality to what I could be purchasing.
Here’s my reason. Frankly, its this symbol. I do not believe I could match the quality (or even come close to the quality) of the freeze dried foods I buy from Thrive Life. This NUTRILOCK symbol is found on every can of Thrive food. What does it represent? There are over 40 quality-control steps that are strictly adhered to in order to qualify for this symbol. They begin at the farm and go right through to the minute the food is sealed in a BPA free can. Adherence to that compliance is called THE NUTRILOCK PROMISE.
The fact is, I live in central Alberta. The bulk of what I might normally freeze dry, I’d have to purchase from a grocery store or market or orchard – many hours away. Most fruits are picked green – before they’re fully developed and before all their natural nutrition is intact. Then they are shipped to my city (still green), and often times I would still buy them green and wait for them to ripen in my kitchen. It is commonly understood that produce begins to deteriorate within the hour after harvest: nutritionally and in every other way. But the fruit that I would purchase would already be several days past harvest time – diminishing it’s nutritional value.
With all that considered, I’m already I’m behind the 8 ball. Time is of the essence for nutritional superiority, and already I’ve lost valuable time. If I grew all these items in my own backyard, it might be a completely different story, but I don’t grow enough strawberries for freeze drying, and I don’t grow peaches, apricots, pears, suitable apples, pineapples, mangoes, assorted berries or many other fruits that I would like to have in my food storage. I don’t feel I grow enough fruits or vegetables to justify the cost of the freeze dryer, and even if I did I doubt I can match the high percentage of original food value that Thrive Life ensures.
Thrive produce is harvested at the perfect ripeness, the peak of nutritional perfection. It is flash frozen within 2-4 hours from harvest, the first step in the two step ‘freeze drying’ process. It is then shipped in a frozen state to the nearest Thrive facility where it goes through the second step – that of drying. It goes straight from frozen to freeze dried without thawing or forming crystals – through the miracle of food science at its best.
Frankly, I just don’t believe I could match that quality. If I have to purchase the food anyway I reason, I might as well purchase it FINISHED. That’s just me. If you live in southern BC or southern Ontario and grow a lot of your own of produce then freeze drying at home is probably more suitable for your situation. We all have to make that decision.
My assessment after many years of including Thrive Life Freeze Dried foods in our family’s day to day eating and food storage –
I like it. I really like it. It has earned an honoured place in our home, and it’s here to stay.
Yes, it can be pricey. But food IS pricey these days. Ways that I beat that:
I always shop the sales, always get free shipping, and always use it – cutting down on food waste in my kitchen.
I hope my personal experience gives you the encouragement to experiment yourself, and learn the value of freeze dried food in a well planned out Food Storage. If you’re new to this whole way of eating, take the CHEF PACK Challenge. Try all three, one a month. That’s approximately 20 fun new recipes designed to help you learn to love the food. Prepare to be amazed. I’d love to hear about your experience. Please comment below.
Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle