DEP E107
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Matt Regusci: [00:00:00] And so we end up with a lot of leftovers, like a lot of leftovers that then don't get eaten. And I throw it away and I hate throwing away food. And a lot of people are the same way. They hate throwing away food. So I'm like to my wife, like either we get this Harvest Right type of a thing, or we get a pig.
My wife knows that that technique doesn't work on her. We use that with our children all the time, giving two options that you want. Not that they want, and then they pick one of the two. My wife is like, we're definitely not getting a damn pig Matt. And I'm still not sold on this right thing, but I really want one because we can fatten a pig with all of our leftovers and not have to feed them anything else, but the shit that comes up.
Francine L. Shaw: So you do know, I, they discovered years ago, the slop feeding pigs is what caused trichinosis.
Matt Regusci: Oh, yeah?
Okay, well, we'll just cook it really good. I don't know.
intro: [00:01:00] Everybody's gotta eat. Nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points, from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine L. Shaw and Matt Ragucci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't. Eat. Poop. Don't eat poop.
Matt Regusci: Hello, hello, Francine. Hey, Matt. Okay. So this is something we started off two years ago and our show was just you and I bantering about food safety. And now it's morphed into a bunch of interviews, but today is going to be refreshing because it's just you and me again.
Francine L. Shaw: It's been a while.
I know.
Matt Regusci: I like that.
Francine L. Shaw: Yeah.
Matt Regusci: I like you, Francine. I like you too, Matt. I like interviewing other people, but it is nice to have a show where it's just you and me bantering about food safety issues. Getting ourselves in trouble.
Francine L. Shaw: [00:02:00] So when we did that LinkedIn live the other day, what did I say? Something about my wittiness, my sarcasm.
Oh yeah. I need to not do that because it gets me in trouble.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Francine L. Shaw: And then I called you what, two hours after it was over. With a really sarcastic remark that I need to not say.
Matt Regusci: Well, yeah, and we're talking about doing an episode about what's going on with the FDA and the USDA. And you and I are both very worried that we may get into a lot of trouble having that conversation.
Francine L. Shaw: Yeah, I don't know until they edit it. There might not be but 10 minutes.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, we'll do like a 90 minute podcast and our editors like, Oh, hi guys. You got to fill in some more because there's 15 minutes. We had to take out an hour. Yeah. Okay.
Well, today's topic. I don't think it's going to be very controversial, but it will be, I think, very interesting because I actually [00:03:00] want one of these things.
And I was talking to Francine about it and she had, she understands the concept, but she didn't know that you could really have these things at home. And that is freeze dryers.
Francine L. Shaw: No, I had no idea. I know dehydrators. I've had a dehydrator at home. I don't anymore. But...
Matt Regusci: Yeah, and you, you do dehydration, freezing, canning, all that stuff, right?
Francine L. Shaw: Yeah. Now, before my family is listening to this and being like, she does what I haven't in a while done those things. I mean, I've made jam jelly, but I haven't some of that stuff. I've not done in a while, but yes, I have.
Matt Regusci: Right. I'm not saying every season you're going out picking...
Francine L. Shaw: Cherries or peaches and deer meat or whatever.
Matt Regusci: But you did talk about a story where your husband used to work at an apple facility, right? Yeah. And the, you guys would can a ton of like, apples. Applesauce. Yeah. [00:04:00] Wow. A few years ago, maybe a decade ago, this company called Harvest Right. I think it's what it is. Harvest Right came out with this product where you could do freeze drying at home. Okay.
So for those of you who don't know, like freeze drying, when we're talking about freeze drying, we're talking about camping meals, right?
That you can, you will find at the grocery store or a camping store. And it's like, generally in these bags and they're not dehydrated, they're freeze dried. Which Francine, I think you might actually know the science of this a little bit more. What do you know? The freeze drying science?
Francine L. Shaw: It's going to take all the moisture out of the food.
So if there's no moisture, it's going to be safe because you need the moisture for the bacteria to grow, but the astronaut food. Yeah, astronaut food. Exaclty. Right now, astronaut food. They used to put years ago, there were, they had bomb shelters, even in the U. S. you would have [00:05:00] these bomb shelters and they would put rations down there in case you needed to use them.
And there would be freeze dried food in these bomb shelters.
Matt Regusci: Right. And you'll see him now, like the fad right now because of these Harvest Right things is people are creating like freeze dried candy, for instance, like freeze dried Skittles, freeze dried... Freeze dried Skittles? Yeah. Freeze dried Skittles.
Yeah. You could freeze dry a lot of things, right? So what we're going to be talking about today is these home freeze dryers made by Harvest Right and other companies and how cool they are. I actually want one. I want a freeze dryer. We go through so much food in my house. It would actually alter the way I cook.
One of the things you can't really freeze dry is fats because the fats don't really freeze dry well. Okay, so the science of it is these are used to be huge [00:06:00] factories that would freeze dry these products and you bring the temperature down super super low like negative 20. It is a vacuum that you end up creating in these machines that then sucks over 90 percent of the moisture out of the food. Then you bring it up and you heat it up to suck out as much more as you can. Then you cool it back down.
So the idea is that this freeze drying gets so much moisture out of the product that there's no ability for the bacteria to grow on it.
Francine L. Shaw: So can I say, I need to say something for all the scientists that are listening to this. We don't have time to go into all of the details of this and we aren't scientists, but I do have a couple of questions.
So do they explain that how important it is to get the moisture out? And do they recommend, I don't know if they're called moisture meters or did they recommend testing? Yeah. How do you know that you've gotten enough of the moisture [00:07:00] out? That is exactly the episode. So I don't mean to jump in.
Matt Regusci: Yes, exactly.
Correct. Those are the questions that need to be answered in this because the idea is that, like, when this is done, and it is done correctly, being air quotes here, the shelf life of these products are like 25 years. Assuming you're doing the right products that have very little fat, which could go rancid, and you utilize the equipment correctly, then these products can last 25 years.
The problem is that if something goes wrong and you don't do this correctly, two years from now, the product could go rancid, right? Or if you don't package it correctly, then you could add moisture as well.
Francine L. Shaw: It's not going to take two years if it's not done correctly.
Matt Regusci: Yes. If, because depending upon where you live, like I live in Colorado, so for me, freeze drying is pretty cool because I can make some [00:08:00] mistakes in the process of pulling the product out and getting it into packaging.
I have a little bit more time than somebody in Florida or somebody like you in Pennsylvania where the humidity is significantly high. Like in my house, I have to add a humidifier because in Colorado Springs where I live, we have like less than 10 percent humidity on an average day. But even from pulling the product out of your freeze dryer to getting it packaged, if you don't do that fast enough, it will pull moisture from the air over a period of time.
Because if the moisture of the product is at 5%, so 95 percent of the moisture has been pulled out and your ambient air is at 30%, that product is going to pull the moisture from the air to get to that homeostasis. Okay, again, we're not scientists. So how long [00:09:00] that takes? I don't know. But there's a problem with that too, right?
And so then if you're storing it and you're, if you're not storing it in an airtight container with packages that will pull moisture out of that, then it will try to suck that moisture out of the air.
Francine L. Shaw: So wait, so you're saying that it pulls the moisture out of the air after it's freeze dried before you package it?
Matt Regusci: If you wait a day. It's going to pull.
Francine L. Shaw: Oh, right. Yeah. You freeze dry and package it now is what you do.
Matt Regusci: That's what you're supposed to do. Correct. But if somebody is busy and doesn't do that, then you're defeating the purpose of the freeze dried product. Right. Or if you don't package it correctly, it's not going to store for 25 years either.
So there's a whole lot of things. Okay. So, but these freeze dryers I think are super cool. I want one.
Francine L. Shaw: You know who else I would think might think That's super cool, Melissa. I don't think she's over there right now, but she would think that was super cool. [00:10:00]
Matt Regusci: Yeah, for me, like it's getting to the point now where I either buy a pig that I'm going to fatten up to eat later on, or I buy one of these freeze dryer things, the amount of food I throw away.
Okay. So when you have a household. of 13 people. Okay. Every single meal you cook for what you think 13 people are going to eat. Let's say 10 people are going to eat. Okay. And in our household, we have a bunch of teenagers. Sometimes that's not enough, but a lot of times that's too little because somebody is, um, you know, I have four kids I didn't know are going to go to friends houses, blah, blah, blah.
And so we end up with a lot of leftovers. Like a lot of leftovers that then don't get eaten and I throw it away and I hate throwing away food and a lot of people are the same way. They hate throwing away food. So I'm like to my wife, like either we get this Harvest Right type of a thing, or we get a pig.
My wife knows that that technique doesn't work on [00:11:00] her. We use that with our children all the time, giving two options that you want, not that they want. And then they pick one of the two. My wife is like, we're definitely not getting a damn pig Matt. And I'm still not sold on this right thing, but I really want one because we can fatten a pig with all of our leftovers and not have to feed them anything else.
But that comes up.
Francine L. Shaw: So you do know, I, they discovered years ago that slop feeding pigs is what caused trichinosis.
Matt Regusci: Oh yeah?
Okay, well we'll just cook it really good. I don't know.
Francine L. Shaw: So, we actually buy a pig and then vacuum pack the meat and freeze it.
Matt Regusci: Okay, so these Harvest Right freeze dryers, there's other brands as well.
What they are, are they've been able to take it from like factory size down to... they're not a small piece of equipment. They're somewhere between a [00:12:00] microwave and a washing machine.
Francine L. Shaw: Holy crap. It's that big.
Matt Regusci: They're big, right? Cause you have to remember this machine has to freeze the product down to like 20, negative 20 to 30 degrees, vacuum seal it, suck moisture out of it, and then heat it back up to suck out even more moisture.
It's a beast of a machine, what it's being asked to do. Yeah, so we're talking about, some of the machines are smaller, they have like huge ones, and they have small ones. But even the small ones are going to be like two times a microwave, just instead of being, uh, horizontal, it's like vertical. Just hitting my mic here, because I'm using my hands, which nobody else sees, because we're a podcast, but whatever.
So, it's like vertical. Yeah, you gotta check them out, they're pretty cool. Alright, but They, they train you. I'm sure that there's a ton of YouTube videos I've watched on this and they talk about the safety of it. But I really wanted to bring this up because it was on Food Safety News [00:13:00] and I love this concept, but it could be a problem.
People could get sick from this for a few different reasons. One is they could die. They totally could. One is because we're talking about it at home device. It's not a device.
Francine L. Shaw: I need to stop you because I want to ask questions as we go rather than wait to the end. 100 percent two questions. One is where do we store this thing?
If it's that big because it's massive.
Matt Regusci: Why are you asking questions like this? You sound like my wife.
Francine L. Shaw: Secondly. I can remember a year or so ago with your 20 children, your wife wanted a new washer or dryer. Did you ever get that for her?
Matt Regusci: Yes, I did. See, so that's a selling point is I bought her a new washing dryer.
This conversation is going downhill. You're derailing this conversation, Francine. You're going to get me in trouble. Okay. So those are great questions. Okay. First [00:14:00] off is these things costs. And so they're not cheap, right? Cause it's, we're talking about like a real machine here, like legit big machine. They cost anywhere between 2, 000 for a small one to like 5, 000 for the biggest ones.
Okay.
Francine L. Shaw: Okay.
Matt Regusci: Okay. So they're not cheap, but also for what it does, they're fairly inexpensive.
Francine L. Shaw: It's an appliance. It's an appliance. And that's how you have to look at it.
Matt Regusci: It's an appliance.
Francine L. Shaw: An investment.
Matt Regusci: It's an investment. Like if you're doing prepping, for instance, or you're looking to do like a year's worth of food in your household.
You have to think of it like, it would cost for one or two people, it would be very expensive. But for like 13 people, it would be fairly inexpensive. If you're looking at putting it towards a year's worth of food storage, right?
Francine L. Shaw: And so we don't want people listening to think they can go out and buy one of these, [00:15:00] make food, freeze dry it.
Matt Regusci: Actually, you can.
Francine L. Shaw: Not without the proper permits and certifications. 100%. There's a process.
Matt Regusci: Yes. What we're talking about is a lot of processing.
Francine L. Shaw: A process for all the processing that they need to do.
Matt Regusci: Yes.
Francine L. Shaw: We're not a pizza guy making pizza in the microwave.
Matt Regusci: Oh my gosh, I forgot about that episode.
You and I were both like, Okay, food safety wise Not okay. Entrepreneurship wise though, congratulations, dude, like you're trying to figure out how to make this work, but you need your right permit. Yes. Okay.
So there's a whole cottage industry happening where people are buying these huge machines. And you'll probably see them at your convenience store or whatever is freeze dried candy or freeze dried ice cream at like you're talking about astronaut food.
So like [00:16:00] freeze dried ice cream sandwiches, people are buying these, the extra large one, which I think is like 5, 000 a piece. And they're creating their own companies from this now with candy. The dairy ones, like the freeze dried ice cream, there is more of a risk than freeze dried Skittles, for instance.
You're talking about taking sugar. I think the shelf life of Skittles alone is probably a hundred years. And they have to say that because they have to put a shelf life on there because of quality, not because of safety. But it's basically just sugar.
Francine L. Shaw: It might even be longer. In Europe, they're not even allowed to sell Skittles.
Matt Regusci: I know between the, between the, like the red dye and a blue dye and all the different colors and the sugar that preserves not just the candy, but yourself as you're consuming it. You're taking like that and then freeze drying it, which is another massive, huge kill step. They're pretty safe. No, don't worry about dying from that.
But if you start ice cream with the dairy, there's a potential there, right? Like a [00:17:00] big potential. So that is a cottage industry that's popping up, and if you're interested in that, awesome, but you have to make sure you follow the right permits for your state.
Okay, so you asked a bunch of questions, where you would put this?
Because they're also very loud. I, again, I don't have one, but I've watched a lot of YouTube videos on this and these machines are loud, like in noise canceling type of cameras that people are using. You can still hear these things in the background, right? Because it's freezing it down super low and vacuuming it and heating it back up.
There's a lot of stuff.
Francine L. Shaw: You're a professional, Matt. Do you always go to YouTube and TikTok for your?
Matt Regusci: 100%. Doesn't everybody?
Francine L. Shaw: I mean, I did for my coffee machine that I bought, but it is costly.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, that was before Chad's machine. Okay, so these machines are big, they're loud, where you would put them? And they take a ton of electricity, right?
Because, again, you're bringing the temperature down super [00:18:00] low, vacuum sealing, all that stuff takes up a ton of energy. So you need to have a special outlet put into your house as well. Can't be more than 220, right? I think it is 220. I don't know. It's more, it would be like an appliance, like a laundry machine type of a plug.
Like a 220? Yeah, like a 220.
Francine L. Shaw: Like a regular is 110, 220 is what you plug your washing machine or Or yourself into.
Matt Regusci: That's exactly correct. Yes. So you need to have that outlet put into wherever you want this machine to be.
Francine L. Shaw: I love that I knew that you didn't.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, good. You're helping me here. Because yeah, you also flip houses and stuff like that.
So, yeah. This is a really good point too, because I am not a do it yourselfer type of a person. I am a do it yourself and jack it up to the point now that it costs more money to get both what I wanted to be done and what I jacked up fixed. That's how bad I am. So I [00:19:00] have to pay people to go do whatever it is I want, which is also a negative for me whenever I want anything like this for my wife.
Whereas your husband is very different.
Francine L. Shaw: Yeah. There's nothing that he can't. He's pretty amazing.
Matt Regusci: Yes. So YouTube bot fixed up in flipped houses. So yeah, you would know the 220 plug. I just know. Oh, it's a different plug that takes up more energy.
Francine L. Shaw: So there's big plugs, not that little small plug that I, it's one of those big special plugs.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. The big special plug. The one with weird prongs that stick into the wall. Call an electrician. Yeah. So my father in law, like I, my wife and I just got married. We were still in college. We were living in our first apartment together and my wife bought this really cool light switch. Like thing. Okay.
And so I turned the light switch off and then went to go change the light switch out. And I just [00:20:00] figured if I turn the switch off, there's no electricity going to this thing. So then I'm changing this thing and I shocked the shit out of myself.
Francine L. Shaw: Or that's only 110 and not 220.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. A good thing. I didn't want that like lightning going through you.
My arm was numb for two days. And my father in law was like, okay, you now cannot do anything that has to do with electricity at all. How minor it is. No, you can't do it.
Francine L. Shaw: Matt, you need to figure out how to earn a good living because this is not, you're going to have to pay people.
Matt Regusci: 100%.
Francine L. Shaw: But that's okay because the world needs.
All of us. The world needs all of us. Right.
Matt Regusci: I helped the economy.
Francine L. Shaw: Yes.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Francine L. Shaw: I just posted something the other week about how we need more tradespeople in this world. We do not have enough tradespeople.
Matt Regusci: 100%. And so I tell my sons. I grew up blue collar trades. People, janitor, carpet cleaner type [00:21:00] peeps are a good living as a tradesperson way, way better now too, because there's so few people doing it.
It's crazy. Okay. So yes, it's a big piece of equipment. It's very noisy, takes up a lot of electricity. You would want to put this in the garage or something like that. Okay. Or someplace where you can close it off, but that's well ventilated because you don't want this thing overheating and exploding. I say exploding in air quotes.
I don't think the thing will actually explode, but it will break.
So this takes a long time, like a batch of product that you send through this machine takes 30 hours for it to go from initial sticking it into the machine, closing the door, putting the settings on, and then go. It takes 30 hours for this machine to work.
But we're talking about an at home device that is doing very complicated things. And so a lot of things can go wrong. Okay. So to the other [00:22:00] question, I'm so glad we did not talk about this before, because the questions you were asking are exactly the questions that people are going to want to know when we do this, there are going to be pockets, just like your oven cooks differently at different shelves, just like your oven cooks at different temperatures based upon where it is in the center or on the edges or whatever this machine has the same issue.
Okay. So there are going to be pockets that get done faster and pockets that get done slower. How you cut up and prepare the product is also going to change things. So the thicker the product is, the harder it is, the machine has to work to suck out all the moisture, right? Also, how you put it on the tray, lay it out on the trays are going to affect how this works too.
Do you stack up a bunch of products? Well, then the stuff on the bottom may not be as done as the stuff on the top. There are devices to check the [00:23:00] moisture content. So you can buy devices on your phone that you can do like a meter and it will tell you what the moisture content is. You can also see if there are pockets that are hot, then that might not be done yet.
So there are a lot of variabilities. and issues with this device that if not handled correctly, you could create a whole bunch of product and then quickly put it in the right packaging with the right stuff to suck moisture out or keep moisture out of the product. But if the moisture was still in the product, then the shelf life is not going to last that long.
Francine L. Shaw: So when you test it, if there's still moisture or something is wrong, do the devices give you a corrective action or do you need to know what that corrective action is?
Matt Regusci: So you... There are things on the device that allows you to then extend the time. Okay. So let's say you had a batch, a product, it went 30 hours, the machine thinks [00:24:00] it's done.
Then you go and you test it and then you see, nope, I need more time. And so you shift the shelves, the product on different shelves, maybe pull it apart a little bit to help those pockets that need to get done better. You stick it back in, you extend the time another four hours, you pull it back out and you check it again.
Francine L. Shaw: So this requires planning because I'm going to pop it in now. I need to know what I'm going to be doing 30 hours from now.
Matt Regusci: 100%.
Francine L. Shaw: That's a problem for me.
Matt Regusci: That is a problem. Well, it's not just a problem for you. It's a problem for a lot of people, right? If you're looking at this and you go, Oh my gosh, I want this thing.
This is going to be great. I want to make a whole bunch of product. I want to have a year's worth of food, and I know that this is going to last 25 years because that's what it said on the package. That is correct. If done correctly, if not, it's a ticking time bomb of food compliance issues.
Francine L. Shaw: It's a problem for me, but they say opposites marry.
My husband is so disciplined with that kind of stuff. He'd be there [00:25:00] and he would have that stuff packaged and where it needed to be.
Matt Regusci: I really think that this is something that your family would love. Your husband and son would love this.
Francine L. Shaw: I can see my son 100 percent loving this. I think my husband would as well.
Matt Regusci: Oh, your son. Why don't you buy this so I could play with it?
Francine L. Shaw: I don't know. They'd be like, why don't we buy this?
Matt Regusci: Right. I think these machines are going to be with us for a very, very long time and they're growing in popularity. So...
Francine L. Shaw: I bet I'm just thinking. So, you know, we live very rurally and there is I took a picture of all the deer in my backyard the other day.
We don't hunt out of season, but at one can you freeze dry deer jerky?
Matt Regusci: Yes. In fact, wild game is like the best to freeze dry [00:26:00] because of the fat content, right? And so when you're doing recipes through this thing as well, like if you're thinking, well, I make a ton of marinara. I could just freeze, dry a bunch of marinara.
That is absolutely true. If you aren't putting a lot of olive oil or other type of stuff in the marinara. Or, if you have a meat sauce. Like me, like I cook, I cook marinara, I cook a ton of it, and I use meat. So what you want to do is you really want to drain as much of that fat off as possible. And so you have to think, like for me, if I were to get this machine, I would have to rethink the way I do cooking, or understand that anything that has a higher fat content is going to have a less shelf life.
So it's not put on there that it could last up to 25 years. The product could last up to 25 years and I think that's a guesstimate. It could last 50 years. It could last five years. There's a lot of variables that are going to change that. One of them is fat content because fat will go rancid. [00:27:00] It's not just the moisture, right?
It's also some of the different things you put in there. So where with wild game, it's very low fat.
Francine L. Shaw: It would be like the moisture, the acidity, pH, I would imagine.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, the pH. Yeah, wild game, totally to put in here. But, if not done correctly, there's an article on Food Safety News about this. You're gonna end up having that product go bad.
And some of the ones with the highest probability of going wrong are what people would want to freeze dry the most, which is meat and fruits and vegetables, which is where we see the majority of the outbreaks.
Francine L. Shaw: In general, highest risk items.
Matt Regusci: Correct. But even if you were to cook them, say you cook them and you cook off whatever potential E. coli or salmonella would be on the product, and then you freeze dry it, which in itself should also kill off most of it. When you bring it out [00:28:00] and then you could create your own botulism, right? You can create like a lot of problems if not done correctly.
Francine L. Shaw: You're just creating, in some cases, different problems.
And cooking doesn't always kill everything.
Matt Regusci: Right?
Francine L. Shaw: There's just so many variables.
Matt Regusci: What would suck though, is if you made a whole bunch of this thinking you're going to use it for going to go camping and then you get a day out on the trail and you pull your meal out and you find out that it's rancid and gone bad, that would not be good.
All right.
So here are some of the things that you would want to have in the food safety news article, which I such a cool article. I love that they do this stuff. It's not just outbreaks and stuff that they do, it's stuff like this. You wanna start with the best ingredients possible, right? You wanna slice uniformly, but if it's really thick, it's going to take a lot longer for it to freeze dry, and you're gonna have more inconsistencies [00:29:00] with the drying process if it's thick.
So you wanna slice it uniformly and thinly because the uniformity is also going to have an issue, right? What you don't want is to have half the tray done and the other half the tray not done because you cut the product too thick and then too thin.
Francine L. Shaw: So now I need to buy a meat slicer too so I can cut uniformly because you should not be using your circular saw for this.
Um,
or your hacksaw because then you're adding heavy metals to them. Not to mention God knows what else you've cut on that.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. God, make sure you're safe with that too. Cause you could end up freeze drying a thumb. Now we've got blood born. We have our own blood born policy for our freeze drying activities.
All right. So then you want to monitor doneness and that is to make sure there's no pockets or whatever. And you can [00:30:00] use a water activity meter. You want to freeze it before you put it in the freeze dryer most of the time, because it will also help with the consistency. So you're not having the machine freeze the product and then freeze it, even lower it.
So you also then want, then you want a deep freezer. See, this is so much fun. All these new toys I'm going to get. Yeah.
Francine L. Shaw: And yeah, we've just, you know, jacked the price up another couple thousand. We didn't even talk about the temperature of just a regular type thermometer in calibrating this equipment.
Making sure this equipment's calibrated that you're using. Oh yeah, totally. So you have to make sure, you know, thermometer calibrating all this equipment because if it's not calibrated, it isn't going to do you any justice.
Matt Regusci: And we taught Bill Marler how to calibrate his meat thermometer a couple of months ago.
And so if he doesn't. He knows he needs to, he just didn't know how to. So the average person probably doesn't even know they need to.
Francine L. Shaw: They don't even have one.
Matt Regusci: Gosh. [00:31:00] This is like a ticking time bomb. Well, if somebody gets sick and dies from their Harvest Right maybe I can buy it at a decreased price.
We're going to hell, Francine. We're going to hell.
Francine L. Shaw: I didn't say that.
Matt Regusci: No, but you laughed. Uh, okay. So here's the other thing too, is when you rehydrate this food, now you've added the water back, which means you can add pathogens back to the food quickly. It could stay fine up to 25 years in its packaging, assuming everything is perfect.
Okay. Let's say you had apple slices, you slice it all uniformly, you ran it through the machine, you realize there are some pockets. You gave it some more, uh, of, of moisture in there. You broke it up a little bit, put it back in there, let it do its thing for another four hours, you came back out, you checked it, all the moisture is gone.
It's beautiful. You packaged it [00:32:00] perfectly. And now it goes 10 years. You open that package up. Everything is beautiful and then added the moisture back to it or you ate it like chips, you left it in your, your closet or pantry with the bag open. Now you can still get any type of bacteria that could come to there because you're adding that moisture back into that product.
Francine L. Shaw: Why are we adding moisture back? Why aren't we eating it dehydrated?
Matt Regusci: Some products you want to add moisture back to it. Like I'm thinking about using this for leftovers, right? Well, those are going to be meals. Those meals you wouldn't really eat dehydrated, you would add water to it and then hot water to it.
Yeah, you want to clean thoroughly, right? So any type of all the materials that you're doing when you're sending this through the freeze dryer, you want to make sure all those materials are cleaned, all those tools are cleaned and sanitized because you want this to last as long as possible. So there you go.
Wow. [00:33:00] Things that make you go. Hmm. So people are talking about utilizing this and freeze drying a bunch of greens and stuff, and then crushing it up into powder form to then make it to a capsule. And so you like have freeze dried beets in capsule form. So then you can get like a bunch of vegetables in a smaller concentration
in a capsule that you could just consume and it would certain amount of capsules equal a serving of broccoli.
Francine L. Shaw: See, I could do that, but the idea of a beet smoothie, I just, that does not do anything for me. I again, love beets. A beet smoothie, not so much.
Matt Regusci: Right? Anything. I like vegetables. It's just hard for me to get the right amount.
Just. Vegetables are harder to prep, right? A salad is one thing, but we're not really big [00:34:00] fans of processed lettuce. So, so it's the convenience of having a bag of lettuce is awesome. Except for the fact that you might die.
Francine L. Shaw: You might die from eating it. Yeah, that's ruined it for me.
Matt Regusci: It defeats the purpose of eating the vegetables in the beginning, which is to make sure you don't die.
And then when you buy it, the processed food, vitamins. They're super expensive. And I don't really know if it's like a placebo or not, because you and I in this industry know that a lot of those supplements are junk. So it was another reason why I was thinking about doing this was like freeze drying a ton of veggies and then smashing them up into a powder form and then sticking it into a capsule and then consuming it that way, which a lot of our listeners would be like, dude, that's just ridiculous.
Just eat vegetables. Yes, I know. I know.
Francine L. Shaw: Yeah, I love vegetables.
Matt Regusci: [00:35:00] Getting my kids to eat vegetables, like I have an easier time getting them to the dentist than getting them to eat vegetables, which could be my fault since we don't, we have vegetables at every meal, but I don't force my children to eat the food.
Francine L. Shaw: You don't like it. And I don't think if you're full. You know what I mean?
Matt Regusci: There you go. That's, uh, the freeze dried food safety. And on that note, we should probably, uh, say, don't eat poop. Definitely don't spend a lot of time, money, and effort into buying, hooking up, and processing freeze dried food to die from pathogens like E. coli.
Francine L. Shaw: Oh my god, no.
Matt Regusci: Here you are, thinking you're doing everything to preserve it, and then you die.
Francine L. Shaw: Yeah. Not good. Not a good idea. Yes. We'll be reading about you on Food Safety [00:36:00] News or watching a video. My God.
Matt Regusci: Probably not, because most people like that, there is no, it'd be really hard to trace it back. So you end up.
Francine L. Shaw: Unless it was multiples and then there'd be a class action lawsuit.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. But like the epidemiology of somebody dying of their own E. coli in their.
Francine L. Shaw: If it was, it would have to be a malfunction or something terribly wrong with the. In the instructions or the machine or something.
Matt Regusci: So there you go. That's it.
That's it. Don't eat poop. Poop. Yep.