http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.html

The small sized freeer is perfect for us so that we use things before the frost takes over!

We have neighbors who have those big freezers…and that’s exactly what happened to them. My elderly neighbor has THREE freezers full of food, and ran a generator day and night to keep the food good…and she still lost a lot when the gas ran out or she didn’t run it at night.

Canned food is the best, most economical food to stash away. If you can your own food, it’s even better. Canned food can be eaten, in many cases, without heating–not so with frozen food.

While frozen food seems a great investment while the power is running and up, think about “what if”. I’m glad my husband dislikes having a freezer stocked with sale items–we ate much better during the outage than most people, and lost a lot less money!

A chest freezer is much more efficient than an upright, and if the power should go out, a full chest freezer will stay colder longer than an upright.

FWIW though I’ve had a big chest freezer even when in a small 2 bedroom apartment in a major city. Once you get used to using one you never want to go back to buying stuff from unknown people. Even when I lived in the city I’d contract for most of my meat from farmers where I could be sure how it was raised. Buying vegetables from a farmers market in season and preserving some for later is also much better than buying unknown imported junk from halfway across the world.

It might be interesting to see what factors play into views on Pro-freezer vs No-freezer.

1. Do you live in an urban (apartment), suburban or rural area?
2. How many people are in your household?
3. What is the distance to your food store?
4. Is there one person handling the food purchases, meal planning and preparation? Is that person also employed full time outside the home?

Something is not clutter if you are utilizing it. If I were an apartment-dwelling single guy in an urban area, a freezer would likely be clutter.

If you don’t have/need/want/use one, that does not negate the value to those of us who do.

We use the generator to run the Air Conditioning. Not the freezer. Not just cuz its HOT during H season. But you gotta keep the humidity out of your house. YUCK.

Most everyone has an outdoor grill, so we can cook up the little bit of meat we have.

Periodic power outages– Small price to pay for living in paradise.

After our province was hit with a hurricane 5 years ago, we invested in a small generator that will power a small refridgerator and the freezer to avoid spoilage should we have another long term power outage.

Some people felt it was difficult to organize a freezer and to keep track of it’s contents. I use milk crates inside mine. They don’t stick to the freezer and it’s perfect for organizing. I keep one with meat, one with bread, one with frozen berries, one for baked goods etc. Just lift and view. Carbboard boes work well too. Just fold in the tops.

**Thank you to those that posted the tips on using a dry erase board.

OogieM – I’m going to try freezing my tomatoes whole – thanks!

Sarah said: (line your casserole dish with tin foil while assembling, freeze, remove foil and food and rewrap without the dish. when you’re ready to cook it, pop it back in the same casserole dish and have at it!).
Great tip! Thanks!

Also, growing up in the Tornado and Blizzard Belt—I learned to be self-sufficent and stock a pantry and freezer (supported by a generator when necessary.)

As to eating fresh and local. Fresh isn’t possible in my area for about half the year except for meat, and I’d rather do local, which means either canning or freezing when stuff is in season. Canning takes a lot more energy compared to running a freezer for a year.

Grocery shipping is a minimum of 10 miles away (20 round trip) , major shopping is 75 miles away.(150 mile round trip) It’s not going to happen to buy weekly for us ever.

And besides, meat is better when you know where it was raised and ruminants should not be fed any grain. That means buying a grass finished animal when they are ready and that is usually once a year.

We have an 18 cu ft chest freezer and we can fit half a cow, half a pig up to 2 deer and a years’ worth of chicken in it as well as a lot of veges. Freezer burn is not a problem if stuff is packaged properly and I know that a deep freeze kept at below zero will hold meat for over a year.

For you vegetarians, in our area it is not sustainable to raise veges on our land. It is only suited to permanent grass pastures so we would not be good ecological stewards of our farm if we raise and eat only veges. Plus humans evolved as omnivores and I think it is wrong to feed any creature, including me, a diet that is not natural. Which is why my chickens are never vegetarian fed, they are true free ranged and eat all sorts of insects, worms as well as grains and legumes. My sheep never eat any meat products at all, and no grains either and I only buy pork from people who provide pasture as well as feed. Beef is all grass finished and of course the deer we hunt are also fed on browse and plants no meat by products.

Part of decluttering is to reduce your total footprint for your lifestyle. That means not making unnecessary and excess trips in a car, buying locally raised products, eating what can be grown locally as much as possible. Having a big freezer is part of that for us.