Thanks to the new breathe of fresh air in the recent regular
supply of few hours of power provided to major towns and
cities in Nigeria which is seemingly better than what it had
been about a decade ago. Asides these few weeks, Nigeria is
notable for constant blackout or incessant power supply, so
the need for house wives and our mothers to preserve their
food stuffs lies in the use of other alternatives to prevent
these items from deteriorating.
How To Store Some Common Foods Without Refrigeration
In this short post, you will be learning how best to
preserve some of our common food items without necessarily
affecting the quality to an unacceptable level.
1. EGGS:
There has been a serious debate particularly between the
Americans who believe eggs are to be refrigerated to prevent
bacteria proliferation and the Britons who disagree and feels
that eggs can be stored at room temperature long enough
without leading to bacteria infestation.
As this argument continues, a research centre took time to
subject these claims to a test and found out that after a
period, both storage forms of eggs were free from bacteria
and safe to consume. In view of this, it is clear that you
can keep your eggs at room temperature on the shelves of
your kitchen particularly the Nigerian types that had been
vaccinated against salmonella and other bacteria.
My simple advice is that without refrigeration, do not buy
eggs you do not plan to consume within two weeks.
Although, eggs stored at room temperature have been found
to store longer than two weeks.
2. MEAT:
Staying at quite a distance to the market seem to make
many households to imbibe the culture of storing meat as
they can not dash out to the meat stores whenever they feel
like to purchase fresh meat. So, they buy in bulk. While you
cannot trust the electricity situation in Nigeria, the tested
ways that can prevent meat spoilage is salting and drying.
As a young boy, my mum practices this method when we
newly relocated to another environment. The salting inhibits
the growth of microbes and pushes out more moisture while
the drying eliminates the moisture which usually acts as a
conducive environment for bacteria multiplication leading to
spoilage.
The truth is, nothing taste better than fresh food items.
However, avoiding spoilage while still retaining some nutritive
value is key. My advice is when you are ready to cook your
meat, wash it well in water to remove or reduce the salt
concentration. Usually you do not need to add salt to the
soups or stews.
3. VEGETABLES:
The way to follow in storing vegetables is quite broad and
one needs to be extra careful. If you go to the grocery
store and pick up any vegetable you find; then, you seem
unserious in your quest in keeping vegetables as most of the
vegetable displayed are either too ripe or have been infested.
You have to be picky.
Also, particularly in super store where vegetables are sold,
some of them have been refrigerated in the past. So, no
form of other storage will help apart from refrigeration. It
is advisable to chose your veggies with varying degree of
ripeness so that they can be kept at room temperature and
last a week or two.
It should be noted that vegetables store differently. For leafy
veggies, it is smarter to remove the coloured ones to avoid
the spread of the colouration. Aerating them will also help
in moisture loss and this method can keep them from few
days to a week.

Good.

But how can I store plantain. I don't buy plenty cuz they end up getting too ripe

Do not hesitate to share how you preserve your food items
asides from refrigeration.
Cc: lalasticalala

bigass123:
One sure method is by removing them from the bunch.. Let's say you buy #400 worth of plantain which may have 6-8 in one bunch... Cut them of the bunch to reduce the rate of it getting over riped. It will eventually get there but ungrouping them will slow down the process. Try it out.

Will surely try it.