In 2018, Finnish scientists discovered they could create plant cell cultures that were nutritious and delicious, according to taste testers.  They have produced pleasant-tasting cell culture lines that can be added to things like smoothies or jam.  They’re not at the point yet where they can produce apple slices you could toss in a baggie for a snack, but that is the end goal, and researchers around the world are convinced it’s possible.

How do they grow fruit in a lab?

Growing a fruit from cell cultures in a laboratory involves four steps:

• Step 1: Multiplication—This is where stem cells are taken from the meristem of a desired fruit plant and then multiplied.
• Step 2: Induction of flowering in multiplied stem cells—This is currently the biggest technological hurdle.
• Step 3: Induction of fruit production—This can be done using organic compounds, rather than traditional pollination.
• Step 4: Growing the fruit—This part consists of providing the growing fruit with the optimal nutrients needed for development.

These projects involve cell culturing.  Lots of foods like to call themselves “lab-grown” for the novelty factor.  Scientists tout the Cosmic Crisp apple as being “lab-grown” because the original development took place in a laboratory.  But Cosmic Crisp apples are grown on trees, outdoors, in the sunshine, just like any other apple you’d eat.

That’s not what we’re talking about here with truly cell-cultured fruit.  The technology for this is quite advanced and so far, scientists have not been able to come up with anything that actually looks like a piece of fruit.  The ultimate goal is to grow edible-parts-only pieces of fruit.  So apples without cores, citrus without peels, and so on.

Given the technical difficulty and expense in development, you may wonder, why bother?  There is a big population that has an ethical problem with killing animals for food, but the group of people with moral qualms about plucking an apple from a tree  is vanishingly small.

Additionally, livestock rearing is pretty foreign to the average urban or suburban dweller.  Growing your own fruits and veggies isn’t.  Neighborhoods all over the country are dripping with fruit at certain times of the year.  I feed lots of dinged neighborhood fruit to my pigs because homeowners literally can’t process it.

So, what’s the official excuse for these high-tech expenditures?

New Zealand’s Newsable discusses this with Ben Schon, Senior Scientist with the New Zealand Plant and Food Research.  He sees lab-grown fruit as an additional source of food as the world’s population expands, not as a replacement for traditional agriculture but a supplement to it.  Dr. Schon is a firm believer in man-made climate change and coming problems with overpopulation. He sees developing the technology to produce food in closed environments as a sort of hedge for traditional agriculture in case of climate disaster and thinks it may be more sustainable in the long run.

Lucas van der Zee, horticulture and product physiologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, sees growing only edible fruits in laboratory environments as a way to remove land from agricultural use. His Fruit of Knowledge project aims to grow only the edible portions of fruit in laboratory environments with the express purpose of allowing farmland to revert to its native state.

Proponents of this technology, in general, see it as a way to avoid food wastage.  Why have a whole apple tree with all those leaves and branches when you really just want the fruit?

(Never mind the fact that the trees are beautiful, provide shade, and smell heavenly when in bloom.  But technocrats don’t like to deal in intangibles.)

Avoiding food wastage is indeed an admirable goal, but why not pump more money into home economics classes, rather than shutting them down for ever more STEM courses that most high schoolers won’t use anyway?

Treating home economics as an important life skill and imparting the values associated with thrift and a happy, comfortable home would go a long way toward fixing many of society’s ills.  Thrifty adults waste very little food. Older people who grew up broke are often full of ideas for how to use food before it goes bad.  But the government seems to have zero interest in any solutions that involve a confident, responsible citizenry.  All solutions must be profitable for favored industries.

So, again, why?

Is lab-grown fruit just about the money?

Yeah, but it’s a LOT of money.  In President Biden’s Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing report released in March, he promotes food and agriculture innovation, and as we discussed in our article here, an emphasis on lab-grown food will be part of that.  Between taking market share away from traditional farmers and the patents that will probably be involved, the favored biotech industry will see nice new revenue streams if this technology moves forward.

Cell-cultured food products could also be a convenient vector for getting mRNA into food.  We’ve discussed the efforts to grow heads of lettuce with mRNA vaccines in them.   Research is being done on vaccines that can be inhaled.

I’m sure this sounds crazier than it should, but the fact is that powerful entities, including various governments and large industries, are trying to get mRNA into absolutely everything.

You can really go down the rabbit hole trying to figure this one out, but numbers alone reveal a push in consumer behavior that cannot be ignored.  In March 2020, Moderna posted a profit of $520 million.  After peaking at nearly $23 billion in June 2022 at $10.65 billion in June 2023, they’ve still shown incredible growth in the last three and a half years.

When companies (especially companies with shareholders that include legislators and heads of state) start making huge profits, they don’t want those revenue streams slipping away just because everyone’s getting healthy on their own again.  You can see the push for mRNA vaccines in everything.  mRNA vaccines for flu, Zika, RSV, HIV, CMV, and cancer are in human trials.

There is also a push to get mRNA into livestock.  An RNA-based vaccine platform has been in use for commercial pork since 2018. While no mRNA vaccines have been used in beef production, they are being researched.

Similarly, for poultry, while no mRNA vaccines are currently in use in the U.S., French pharmaceutical companies are conducting trials for mRNA in their poultry.

Our federal government has made commitments toward promoting biotechnology and biomanufacturing, and interested parties are trying to make money by getting biotech (like medical treatments using mRNA platforms for delivery) into everything.  And, of course, this is all done in the name of public health, but if this was truly about health, they would be telling us to eat less processed food, not more.

Hiding food production from consumers facilitates all kinds of tampering with the food supply.  This is not for our benefit.

Lab-grown fruit isn’t in stores. Yet.

Fortunately, the technology to grow things that actually look like pieces of fruit is a long way off.  If you go to the store and buy an apple, you know it grew on a tree.  And even when it comes to jams or smoothies, foods in which it would be easy to add cell culture lines instead of real fruit, the cost is prohibitive right now.  Cell-cultured fruit is too expensive to sneak into other foods.

But it’s worth following this technology.  And if you’re not in the habit of cooking from scratch, there will never be a better time to start.  The less you have to rely on grabbing a bag of “whatever” to fill you up, the less you have to worry about eating something you may not be comfortable with.

What are your thoughts about lab-grown fruit? Would you knowingly eat it? What pros and cons, if any, do you see? Do you think this will make its way to grocery stores?

Sound off on this story on the Late Prepper Substack.

About Marie Hawthorne

A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.

This option is great for preppers who don’t want to buy equipment for food prep or those looking for an alternative food preservation method that will still work even after SHTF and the grid goes down. (h/t to ModernSurvivalOnline.com)

Some may consider food dehydration a modern practice made possible by modern gadgets and factory production, but you can do the same thing at home with common tools. With this method, you don’t need fancy and expensive gadgets. You can air-dry food at home using the power of the sun, warm temperatures and dry conditions.

Benefits of air-drying food

Air-drying is a food preservation process that removes most of the water from the fruit to help prevent spoilage. This process also concentrates the flavor and nutrition of the fruit, making it a valuable addition to your food storage plan.

Air-drying can be used to preserve different kinds of food like fruits, vegetables or meat and it’s a great skill to learn for preppers because it is sustainable and requires little to no equipment. However, you do need to get the timing right when it comes to the weather.

Air-drying fruit can also help you save some money, especially if your family likes snacking on dried fruits, which are often overpriced at the grocery stores and supermarkets. (Related: Prepping skills: 15 Food storage and preservation methods to learn before SHTF.)

Best fruits for air-drying

Almost all kinds of fruit can be dried out if you follow the correct process. Just keep in mind that not all fruits are as palatable as others when dried. Here are some of the best fruits to air-dry at home:

• Apples
• Apricots
• Bananas
• Berries
• Black currants
• Cherries
• Citrus peel
• Figs
• Grapes (Will turn into raisins.)
• Mangoes
• Melons
• Nectarines and peaches
• Pears
• Pineapples
• Plums and prunes

Each fruit will exhibit its own unique characteristics because of the drying process and as a finished product.

For example, apricots dry out more quickly and have a longer shelf life, but they are not as sweet as some other fruits. On the other hand, raisins are sweeter and chewier than grapes, but they might spoil rapidly if you don’t monitor them during the drying process and handle them correctly.

If it’s your first time processing a certain fruit, take note of your progress and mistakes and tweak your process depending on the results.

How to air-dry fruits

Air-drying is an easy and effective technique so use it to reliably air-dry different fruits. Before you get started, choose a day with warm weather.

The basic steps for air-drying are:

1. Wash
2. Peel and slice
3. Treat
4. Pat dry
5. Cover and place
6. Flip
7. Continue
8. Freeze

You’ll need temperatures of at least 90 F for five days continuously in your area, with a humidity level of 30 percent or less for best results.

Note that you won’t be able to dry fruit when temperatures are low or humidity is high. If the overall climate in your region won’t allow you to dry fruit for the required time or is uncooperative, it might be best to find another way to dehydrate food.

Wash

First, thoroughly wash the fruit you want to air-dry. During this step, you need to remove all wax, dirt, grease and any other contaminants that could reduce the quality of the finished product or potentially make you sick.

Carefully wash the fruit in cool water and make sure you don’t bruise or break the flesh. If you’re using soft fruits that are very dirty, soak them in water for several minutes before gently brushing the dirt off.

Never use harsh chemical cleansers during this process because they might be drawn into the flesh of the fruit as moisture evaporates.

Peel and slice

Once the fruit is clean, peel and slice it. The fruit is peeled to improve the taste and texture of the finished product, but sometimes the skins add an interesting element and vital nutrition when certain fruits are dried.

How you peel the fruit will depend on the type of fruit you’re drying. But if you decide to peel the fruit, make sure you preserve as much of the flesh as possible.

Peeling is optional but recommended for some fruits like oranges because it makes them look and taste better when dried. After peeling the fruits, slice them to size so they will dry efficiently.

Slicing thickness is also a matter of personal preference but overall, thinner slices dry faster than thick ones. But make sure you don’t slice them too thinly because the fruit will desiccate into nothing.

Try to slice the fruit in identical sizes so they will dry out at the same time.

Treat

Treating the fruits is optional but highly recommended, especially if you want to store the dried fruit for an extended period of time.

Slicing fruit exposes more surface area to the air, meaning it will also spoil faster. To prevent this, treat the sliced fruit with a weak solution of lemon juice or ascorbic acid (vitamin C) powder and a bit of water. The solution will help preserve the color and flavor of the dried fruit.

Pretreating the fruit is simple once it is peeled, sliced and prepped. Treat the fruit by mixing up the solution according to the package directions.

Submerge the sliced fruit in the solution completely for at least five minutes. You can reuse the same batch of ascorbic acid or lemon juice solution multiple times, but you’ll only get about three uses before the solution loses its potency.

Make several batches of the treatment solution if you are processing a lot of dried fruit.

Pat dry

After the fruit has been treated, pat it dry with a clean cloth or paper towel. This step is important because wet fruit will not dry out properly.

Once done, place the fruit on a wire rack to drip dry. You can also place firm fruits inside a salad spinner to centrifuge most of the moisture off of them.

Gently blot off any remaining moisture or vitamin C solution. Don’t crush or damage your fruit because it has already been through a lot during the treating stage and the quality of the finished product will reflect the prep and prior handling.

While you can skip this step to save time, it will affect the quality of the dried fruit and the pieces that are wetter than others may not dry evenly or might take considerably longer to dry.

Cover and place

The next step is to place the fruit pieces on a tray or pan and cover them so that you can place them outside to dry. Use a metal baking sheet or any other kind of flat cookware like a cookie sheet, cast iron griddle or large pan that is food safe.

Place the fruit directly on the pan and spread them out so none of the pieces are touching. While the fruit will shrink as they dry, you shouldn’t overload the pan because this will only slow the drying process.

Next, cover the drying surface with a layer of cheesecloth, muslin, or other breathable fabric. Using fabric that is thin and airy enough will allow plenty of air and light to get through to the fruit but prevent birds, insects, dirt and dust from contaminating the fruit pieces.

Place the covered trays full of fruit pieces anywhere in a sunny spot outside. It’s best to keep it away from the surface using a tray stand, a trivet, stones, bricks, or anything that will allow air and heat to circulate all around the pan. Placing the pan over a solid and non-porous surface made of metal, stone, or concrete is best because this will cut down the amount of moisture in the air around the fruit pieces.

Regularly check the fruit while it is drying on a tray outside to make sure stray animals or insects don’t eat them.

Flip

Once the fruit has been drying for three to four hours, remove the cloth covering the tray and flip the fruit slices over to allow the other side to dry evenly. While intense direct sunlight, high temperatures and the drawing process will kill bacteria and other germs, some contaminants may persist or re-contaminate the fruit due to careless handling practices.

Wear gloves and use tongs to flip the fruit. This will reduce the number of bacteria and other contaminants that will come in contact with the fruit.

After you flip the fruit, recover it tightly and leave them in place. Adjust the position to keep them in the sun.

Continue to flip the fruit in the tray/s every three to four hours while the sun is up until the fruit is completely dry. The process may take a minimum of two days in ideal conditions with certain fruits.

Air-drying fruit can also take anywhere between several days to a week depending on the type and thickness of the fruit.

Always bring the fruits inside after the sun goes down and the day starts to cool off. This is crucial because plummeting temperatures and an increase in condensation during the night will negatively affect your fruit. The change in temperature and humidity may also spoil or hamper the drying process.

When the sun rises and the temperature starts climbing the next day, place the covered fruit trays back outside and repeat the process every three to four hours.

Once the fruit is properly dried, take a piece and cut or tear it open to examine the interior. Once the test piece is adequately dry, you are almost done.

Freeze

After drying and flipping the fruit, freeze it for several hours for long-term storage. This will help kill any remaining bacteria on the surface.

Freezing also helps reduce the risk of food poisoning and also extends the shelf life of the fruit.

Storage and cleanup

Once the air-drying process is done, store the fruit in an airtight container or in the freezer. You can store the fruit at room temperature for up to a year.

To extend the shelf life of air-dried fruit even further, freeze it in an airtight container. Air-dried and frozen food will last for up to two years or even longer.

Preserve fruits at home by air-drying to save money and build your stockpile before SHTF.

Watch this video to learn about the four best options for long-term food storage.

This video is from the high impact Flix and more!!! channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• Freeze-drying vs dehydration: Which is the best food preservation method?
• Prepping tips: How to build a stockpile if you are lactose intolerant.
• Apartment prepping 101: Pickling vegetables for long-term storage.

Sources include:

• ModernSurvivalOnline.com
• NDSU.edu
• Brighteon.com
• NATURAL NEWS