There’s a great new video up by Retired at 40 that you’re going to want to see. (If you don’t follow Retired at 40 on YouTube, the videos chronicle what a retired almost-40-year-old does all day while his wife is at work. He gets up to some fun home projects, experiments, and shenanigans.)
In his latest video, he decides to freeze dry 60 eggs in his Harvest Right home freeze dryer. The point of the experiment was to compare the cost of store-bought freeze-dried food with home freeze-dried food.
The best deal he could find on store bought freeze-dried eggs was $26.32 for about 12 servings of ¾ cup prepared. To make sure that his comparison was fair, he scrambled a fresh egg to compare the volume (it checked out). He determined that 60 freeze-dried eggs would cost $60 if you bought them from a freeze-dried food company. There was bacon in the product that he was comparing – but there were also a lot of chemicals.
He paid $8.49 for 60 fresh eggs at his local grocery, and then scrambled and cooked them. Sixty scrambled eggs fit on four freeze drying trays, with room for 20 or 40 more! Using a kilowatt meter, he determined that it cost him $1.66 in energy costs to freeze dry 60 eggs. If you’re wondering how much electricity it takes to run a home freeze dryer, watch How Much Electricity Does a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer Use?)
His 60 freeze dried eggs fit in two Mylar pouches. Powdered, they’re even more compact.
At the end of the video, he rehydrates two batches of eggs; one from powdered and one left in its original state right out of the freeze dryer. We won’t spoil the end for you – but you may be surprised at what you see when you watch the eggs rehydrate.
In the end, his Harvest Right freeze-dried eggs cost $0.17 per serving instead of $2.19 per serving! Plus, his eggs are all natural and chemical free.
If you enjoyed Retired at 40’s video, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel for more educational entertainment.
Not just cost. I get farm fresh free range eggs from chickens eating what they usually eat. Fresh they taste far better than the “organic” or “cage free” stuff from the grocery. And they freeze dry easily, and I usually spice it up a bit with oregano, garlic, or hot sauce, and freeze dry into egg puffs (think cheese puffs, but zero carb!). A delicious snack and good for you.
I bought my eggs for $1.00 a dozen and they are top quality eggs. I figured in my oil for my freeze dryer at $2.00 & electricity at about $2.00 also. Both oil & electricity are very high estimates as I get great rate of .08 cents per kilowatt hrs & I filter & reuse my oil. So I figure that I freeze dry 48 eggs at about $8.00 total. I have had my freeze dryer since 2014. Can’t begin to figure in cost for that.
Are you putting oxygen absorbers in your jars to keep the eggs dry?