- 1 week ago
🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method:
https://eliasyoder.com
My mother kept a root cellar that fed our family clear through winter, and her mother before her stored food in ways that needed no electric at all. In this video I walk you through the methods the old women in our community still use — root cellaring, salt curing, dry storage, water-glassing eggs, rendering fat, and keeping a pantry that holds.
I'll be honest with you about what truly lasts for years and what only carries you through a season. Some things — honey, salt, properly stored grains and dried goods — keep nearly indefinitely when you handle them right. Others give you months, not decades. I'll tell you the difference plainly, because a method only helps if you know its limits.
Everything here is done without tying into the public grid. These are the same principles that kept families fed long before refrigeration, and they still work in any home willing to use them.
If you want my complete Amish Home-Saving Method, the link is below.
🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method:
https://eliasyoder.com
Try one of these methods in your own home and tell me how it go
https://eliasyoder.com
My mother kept a root cellar that fed our family clear through winter, and her mother before her stored food in ways that needed no electric at all. In this video I walk you through the methods the old women in our community still use — root cellaring, salt curing, dry storage, water-glassing eggs, rendering fat, and keeping a pantry that holds.
I'll be honest with you about what truly lasts for years and what only carries you through a season. Some things — honey, salt, properly stored grains and dried goods — keep nearly indefinitely when you handle them right. Others give you months, not decades. I'll tell you the difference plainly, because a method only helps if you know its limits.
Everything here is done without tying into the public grid. These are the same principles that kept families fed long before refrigeration, and they still work in any home willing to use them.
If you want my complete Amish Home-Saving Method, the link is below.
🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method:
https://eliasyoder.com
Try one of these methods in your own home and tell me how it go
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00My mother kept a jar of peaches on the cellar shelf for four years once.
00:05Four years!
00:06She opened it the winter my brother took sick,
00:09and the smell of summer came right up out of that jar.
00:13No hum of a machine, no wire to the wall,
00:17and there is no reason on earth you can't have a shelf just like it.
00:23People look at how we live and think the hardest part must be the food.
00:27No refrigerator, no freezer in the corner.
00:31They figure we must be one warm afternoon from everything spoiling.
00:36But that's the thing you see, and it isn't the real problem at all.
00:41The real problem is that you've been taught a refrigerator is the only way to keep food,
00:47when it's just one way, and not the oldest or the best or anywhere near the cheapest.
00:53It's only the one you pay for every single month, year after year, whether you think about it or not.
01:02I'm Esther Yoder.
01:04My people came over from the Palatinate in 1838 and settled this ground in Lancaster County.
01:10And I've kept a household here for years, without ever once plugging a cold box into the wall.
01:17So I'm not going to sit here and tell you stories about how it could be done in the old
01:23days.
01:23I'm going to tell you how you do it, step by step, in the house you're sitting in right now,
01:30with what you've already got.
01:32If you want my complete method written down,
01:35the whole way we run a home for so much less than the English pay,
01:40I put it all in a book.
01:42You'll find it at eliasyoder.com.
01:45That's where I teach how to save around $6,000 a year with the complete Amish home-saving method.
01:53It's there if you want it.
01:55But everything in this video is yours, free, right here,
01:59and you don't need to buy a thing to start tonight.
02:03So let me tell you how this works first, and then exactly what to do.
02:07Here's the one thing you need to understand before anything else.
02:12Keeping food isn't about cold.
02:15That surprises people, because we've all been taught to chase cold.
02:20Colder freezers, more of them, packed fuller.
02:23But cold is only one way to do the one thing that actually matters,
02:28and that's keeping spoilage from getting a foothold.
02:32Spoilage needs three things working together to take hold.
02:36Moisture, air, and warmth.
02:38Take away any one of them, and you've slowed it down.
02:42Take away two, and you've nearly stopped it.
02:45Every single method I'm about to give you does exactly that.
02:49You pull the water out, or you shut the air out,
02:53or you hold the food cool and steady down in the ground.
02:57None of it needs a machine.
02:59None of it needs power you buy.
03:01And most of it is older than this country you're standing in.
03:04Now I'll give you five ways, and I want you to start with just one.
03:09But let me walk you through all of them,
03:12so you can pick the one that fits your house.
03:15Start with canning, because it'll give you the most food for the least trouble,
03:19and it's the one that fills a shelf fastest.
03:22You're going to do water bath canning,
03:25and you're going to do it with high acid foods,
03:28your tomatoes, your fruits, your pickles.
03:31Wash your jars clean.
03:33Fill each one with your prepared fruit or your tomatoes,
03:37and leave a little space at the top, about a finger's width,
03:41because the food needs room to move as it heats.
03:44Wipe the rim clean with a damp cloth so nothing sits in the way of the seal.
03:49Fit your lids.
03:51Then lower the jars down into a pot of boiling water,
03:54deep enough that the water covers them,
03:56and let them boil the full time your recipe calls for.
04:00Don't shortchange that boil to save a few minutes.
04:04The time is what makes it safe.
04:06That boil drives the air out of the jar,
04:09and as it cools on your counter afterward,
04:11the lid pulls itself down and seals tight.
04:14You'll hear it pop, one by one,
04:17and that little sound is the sweetest thing in a kitchen.
04:20Once a jar is sealed, no air can get back in,
04:24and that jar will sit on your shelf good for well over a year.
04:28Many keep far longer than that if the seal holds true.
04:32Now, I have to stop you right here before you go too far,
04:35because I would rather lose your trust than have you hurt your family.
04:39Water bath canning is only safe for high acid foods.
04:44Tomatoes, fruit, jam, proper pickles in vinegar.
04:48For low acid foods, your green beans, your corn, your meat,
04:53water bath is not enough, and you must not do it that way.
04:57Those need a pressure canner to reach a high enough heat,
05:01because there's a sickness called botulism
05:03that can grow in low acid food that wasn't heated hot enough,
05:08and you cannot see it or smell it or taste it.
05:11So keep it simple and keep it safe.
05:14High acid in the water bath,
05:16low acid only in a pressure canner,
05:19following the directions exactly as they're written.
05:22If you're brand new to this,
05:24start with tomatoes this season,
05:26and let everything else wait until you've got the feel of it.
05:29There's no shame in starting small.
05:32The shame is in rushing.
05:34The second method costs you nothing but a little digging,
05:37and it's my favourite for that very reason,
05:40the root cellar.
05:41You don't need a grand stone cellar built into a hillside.
05:45Go down into the earth even a few feet,
05:48and the ground holds a cool, steady temperature all year long,
05:52cool in the summer heat,
05:54and never quite freezing in winter if you go deep enough.
05:57The earth itself does for free what a machine does for money,
06:01and it never breaks down and it never sends you a bill.
06:05So go find the coolest, darkest, dampest corner you have,
06:09a basement corner away from the furnace,
06:12a dugout space under the house,
06:14an old crawl space.
06:16Even a clean barrel sunk partway into the ground
06:19will do to start you off.
06:21Here's exactly what you put down there and how you do it.
06:25Potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, cabbages, and apples
06:29will all keep through the winter in a good, cool cellar.
06:33Bed your carrots and your beets down in damp sand
06:37so they don't go limp and rubbery on you.
06:39Keep your apples off by themselves,
06:42away from everything else.
06:43And I mean that.
06:44An apple gives off something into the air
06:47that ages whatever's stored near it
06:49and makes it go faster.
06:51One apple turning soft
06:53will pull the whole bin down with it
06:55if you let it sit there.
06:56So go down every week or two,
06:58run your eye over the bins
07:00and pull out anything that started to go soft
07:03before it spreads.
07:04That little habit is the whole secret.
07:07The cellar does the keeping.
07:09You just do the watching.
07:10The third is drying
07:12and it's the oldest method there is on God's earth.
07:15You pull the water clean out of a food
07:18and then nothing can spoil it
07:20because spoilage simply cannot live
07:22without moisture to feed on.
07:24Slice your apples thin and even.
07:26Lay your herbs out flat.
07:29String your beans on a thread and hang them.
07:32You can dry them on screens up in a hot airy attic
07:35or in a slow oven with the door cracked open
07:38or out in the sun across a good dry stretch of days.
07:42You'll know they're done when they go leathery or brittle
07:45and there's not the least bit of soft give left in the middle.
07:49That part matters more than anything.
07:52Anything left the least bit damp inside will grow mold
07:55and take the whole jar down with it.
07:58Dried all the way through
08:00and stored in a sealed jar away from the light,
08:03it'll keep a year easy
08:04and often far longer than that.
08:07I've eaten dried apples older than some of you watching
08:10and they were sweet as the day they came off the tree.
08:13The fourth is fermenting
08:15and once you've done it a single time,
08:17you'll keep a crock going in your kitchen always.
08:20Take a cabbage, shred it up fine,
08:23salt it well
08:24and pack it down hard into a crock under its own brine
08:27so the liquid rises up and covers it completely.
08:31Keep it weighted down and keep it covered.
08:33Now here's what happens
08:35and it's a quiet sort of miracle.
08:37The salt holds off the spoilers
08:39just long enough for the good sour bacteria
08:42to wake up and take over the crock
08:44and once those good ones take hold,
08:47they turn the whole thing too sour
08:49for anything bad to ever live in.
08:52That's your sauerkraut.
08:53Set it somewhere cool
08:55and just let it work its way along.
08:57It'll keep for months in a cool cellar
08:59and it's better for your body
09:01than the fresh cabbage ever was.
09:03You don't make it sour,
09:05you just make a safe place
09:07and let it go sour on its own.
09:09That's the whole trick.
09:11And the fifth is salt and brine,
09:13the old standby.
09:14Salt pulls the water right out of a food
09:17and right out of any bacteria
09:19that lands on it too
09:21so nothing can grow
09:22and nothing can spread.
09:24Pack your meat down in heavy, coarse salt
09:27or keep your food submerged
09:29under a strong salt brine.
09:31It's how whole winters of meat
09:34got kept before any of us were born,
09:36before there was a machine
09:38anywhere in the country
09:39and it works exactly the same today
09:42as it did then.
09:43Nothing about salt has changed.
09:46Only we forgot it.
09:48Now I want you to stop
09:49and ask yourself something honest.
09:52If all of this is so simple,
09:54and it is simple,
09:55simple enough that women
09:57with no schooling at all
09:58did it for hundreds of years,
10:00simple enough that I'm telling you
10:02the whole of it in one sitting,
10:04then why does almost nobody
10:06know it anymore?
10:08Why did it disappear
10:09in just two or three short generations?
10:12Here's what I think,
10:13and I want to be careful how I say it,
10:16because I'm not telling you
10:17that anyone sat down in a room somewhere
10:20and plotted this against you.
10:22It's worse than that, in a way.
10:24It's a system,
10:25and a system doesn't need
10:27a single soul to coordinate it.
10:29There's a whole industry
10:31that does well,
10:32year after year,
10:34when you believe, deep down,
10:35that food only keeps in a cold box,
10:38running on power you have to buy.
10:40The folks who sell you the cold box.
10:43The folks who sell you the power
10:45that runs it.
10:46The folks who sell you food
10:48already packaged up
10:49and stamped with a date,
10:51so you'll throw the rest out
10:52and come back and buy more next week.
10:55Not one of them has to plan a thing
10:58or meet with anybody.
10:59They each just do what's good for them,
11:02quietly, on their own,
11:04and the sum of all of it
11:05is a whole country
11:07that plum forgot
11:08how to keep its own food.
11:10Nobody had to coordinate it.
11:12That's exactly what makes it so hard to see
11:15and so hard to undo.
11:17A steadier home is easier to build
11:19when you are not building it alone.
11:22Join our Amish home savings system
11:24and community.
11:25Get full access to our courses
11:28and challenges
11:29and ask Elias and me
11:31your household questions inside.
11:33The link is in the description.
11:35So here's what I want you to do
11:37and I'll say it plain.
11:38Pick one.
11:39Just one.
11:41Don't go trying all five at once.
11:43You'll wear yourself clean out
11:45and quit by Thursday
11:46and then you'll tell yourself
11:48the old ways are too hard
11:49and they aren't.
11:51If you've got a cool basement corner,
11:53start right there with a sack of potatoes
11:55and a few apples kept apart
11:57and just watch how long they hold for you.
12:00If you've got a sunny windowsill,
12:02dry yourself a bundle of herbs.
12:04If tomatoes are coming on,
12:06can a few jars
12:07and listen for that pop.
12:09Start with the one
12:10that fits the house you already have
12:12and let it teach you
12:13before you reach for the next.
12:15And then come back here
12:16and tell me in the comments.
12:18Tell me your county
12:19and tell me how old your house is.
12:22I ask you that for a reason.
12:24The old houses were built
12:25for this very thing.
12:26The deep cellars.
12:28The cool north-facing pantries.
12:30The spring houses out back
12:32that everybody's forgotten the use of.
12:35A great many of you
12:36are sitting right on top of storage
12:38your grandparents built
12:39with their own hands
12:40and you never once knew
12:42what it was truly for.
12:43So tell me what you've got down there
12:46in your basement
12:47or out behind your house
12:48and I'll do my best to tell you
12:50what it was made to hold.
12:52A full cellar in October
12:53is a quiet mind in January.
12:56You won't lie awake
12:58worrying over the power going out
13:00because nothing on those shelves of yours
13:02ever needed power to begin with.
13:04That's not survival
13:06and it isn't going backward
13:07no matter what anyone tells you.
13:10It's just you
13:11remembering that the ground
13:13keeps your food for free
13:14the same as it always has
13:16for anyone willing to learn
13:18the old way of asking it.
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