Food preparation and storage

[Emeraldroots]

I was thinking about cutting up the foods or meals they will eat weekly and storing them in small baggies intended for each day or meal.

Can anyone give feedback on how they do food preperation. I look at the quantity some fruits are sold in and such and worry about them spoiling before the crabs will eat them which is why I want to freeze as much as possible. Im just curious how everyone else manages that stuff?

[ladybug15057]

I bought a food dehydrator to also dry some of our own foods for the winter. (prices seem to skyrocket during the fall/winter months on a lot of produce) It has already paid for itself! Small baggies are good to use, and one can also use those daily pill bottles to freeze food in. Depending on the size of your small baggies, after you get all the air out, you can also use an ice cube tray to store them in. Same foods in the same 'cubes'.

[Emeraldroots]

Eeks the first thing I wonder is how expensive one of those is...
So given you mentioned ice cube trays you feed relatively small portions of food I take it?
A fruit a veggie and maybe a protein of some sort?
With freeze dried food do you add any water at all when you serve it or dry or do they really seem to care?

Thanks for the feedback so far!

[ladybug15057]

Nope, freeze dried served almost as is as in I do grind foods up. This prevents one hermie from taking a chunk of food and the others not getting a nibble of it. I do serve small portions of food, but many at one time. (my one main tank has 45 hermies in it) I use to have a picture of the dry food dish... not sure if I still have it...

Edited to add... got mine at WalMart, $39.00 plus tax a few months ago... has already paid for itself.

[Emeraldroots]

If you still had the picture Id love to see it as I'm curious how others arrange their food. I wont have a dehydrator right away and will likely end up having to freeze the foods I buy until I can do that. Does the dehydrated food last longer before spoiling?

[blondy627]

I freeze my foods. I don't want them to go bad before I get to feed them as you had mentioned. Certain things, I just don't buy for myself because I don't like them, but it doesn't mean my crabs shouldn't have it. So I chop up a pepper, a peice of squash, an apple, whatever into little peices, and label the bag (I use snack size) and then put all the bags in a big freezer bag. Then I just take a few peices out and they thaw with the heat of the tank. My crabs have not complained, whoever actually comes out to eat (I have quite a few burried I haven't seen in quite some time) does nibble on the sampling I put out.

[Emeraldroots]

I c.....well rather then create another thread....move this question if needed...I have a question about seaweed.

I was looking into buying some at the natural food store but couldnt find anything with just SEAWEED. It all had several different kinds of ....seaweed in it. I didnt see kelp anywhere either unless I am remembering wrong and they dont like that anyway. Any advice on purchasing this kind of stuff...what to purchase...what to avoid etc?

Thanks!

[ladybug15057]

Seems when I cleaned out my computer, or when my Windows XP mother board went that photo went along with it. HOWEVER seems my old Yahoo photo album where I let them move my photos to Flickr has an older photo of my dry food dish:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13897053@N ... 322574030/

Yep, neat little piles of freeze dried or dehydrated foods, no mistake if somebody touched it. The still have this daily (rotation of some of the dry foods of course) with a dish of fresh foods that are prepared every evening.

[Emeraldroots]

Awesome. Thanks for the pic. Its always nice to get an example =). What do you use to grind it up? I imagine anything I can come up with will work. Just curious =).

[ladybug15057]

I have 2 things here I use. One is a coffee grinder, and the other is my good ole trusty blender. For now if you don't have either, would you have a ziploc baggy and a rolling pin? Or what I used years ago for hard items, ziploc and trusty hammer!