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MyHealthy Africa · Force for Health Network
For families & communities
Coach Addison's Food Preservation Workbook
Saving Food Without Electricity Sun · Smoke · Salt · Ferment · Ash · Cool Storage
Hello — I'm Coach Addison Konlan
PhD Student · Force for Health Fellow · Your Food Guide
A good harvest is only half the story — the other half is making it last. This workbook teaches six simple ways to save food using only sun, fire, salt, and time. Write in it, take it to your kitchen, and teach it to your family.
Use this workbook together with the A–Z Foods from Africa booklet in the Force for Health library — look up each food to learn its nutrition and traditional uses. Library: www.theforceforhealth.com (exact booklet link to be added).
This workbook belongs to:
Name / household
Village / community
Date started
Why Food Spoils — and How We Stop It
Food goes bad because of four things: moisture, warmth, air, and pests (insects, mould, bacteria). Every method in this workbook removes one or more of them.
Idea
What it does
☀️ Dry it
Remove the water — mould and bacteria cannot grow on dry food.
🧂 Salt it
Salt pulls water out of food and out of the germs that spoil it.
🔥 Smoke it
Smoke dries food and coats it with substances that kill bacteria.
🫙 Ferment it
Helpful microbes crowd out harmful ones and make food safer.
🌾 Seal it
Close food away from air and insects in a tight sack, pot, or drum.
🌿 Cool it
Keep food cool and shaded, or leave roots in the ground, to slow spoiling.
Coach Addison says
The golden rule
Almost every method comes back to one idea: get the water out and keep the air off. Fully dry, tightly sealed food keeps for months. Always dry a little longer than you think you need.
In your own words
Name two of the four reasons food spoils, and one way to stop each:
The Six Methods (1–3)
☀️ Sun Dryingmaize · beans · cassava · vegetables · fruit · fish
Cut food into thin even pieces (3–5mm); beans and grain stay whole.
Spread one layer on clean mats or a raised rack — never on bare soil.
Place in full sun; turn twice a day. Cover with cloth or net against flies.
Bring indoors at night so dew does not dampen it.
Dry until hard and snapping, or rattling (2–5 days).
Lasts 6–12 months sealed
Coach Addison: Raise the mat off the ground — air underneath dries food twice as fast.
🔥 Smokingfish · meat
Clean the fish or meat; rub with a little salt if available.
Lay on a rack 30–50cm above a slow hardwood fire — smoke, not big flames.
Turn every hour; smoke 4–8 hours until firm, dry, and deep brown.
Cassava: leave roots in the ground until needed — they keep for months.
Sweet potato: cure the skins a few days, then store in a cool, dry, airy pit/basket.
Onions: dry the skins, then hang in a cool, airy place out of the sun.
Lasts weeks to months
Coach Addison: The ground is free cold storage — only take what you can use or preserve.
Practice It
Match the Food to the Method
Tick the best choice for each challenge, then check Coach Addison's answer.
🐟 A neighbour gives you 3kg of fresh fish. No market nearby, no fridge. What do you do?
Smoke it, or salt and sun-dry it.
Keep it in a bucket of water until tomorrow.
Cook and eat all 3kg today.
Coach Addison's answer
Smoke it, or salt and sun-dry it. This turns 3kg into weeks of protein; the other choices last only a day or waste the fish.
🌽 You have a large maize harvest and want it to last until next season. What is the key step?
Sun-dry the grain fully, then store sealed with wood ash.
Put fresh cobs straight into a sack in the store room.
Grind it all into flour while still moist.
Coach Addison's answer
Sun-dry fully, then store sealed with ash. Undried maize molds and can grow dangerous aflatoxin — drying first is essential.
🍠 You have more cassava than you can eat this week. What is the smartest move?
Leave most in the ground; dry or ferment what you harvest.
Harvest it all and pile it in the house.
Boil it all and keep the cooked cassava.
Coach Addison's answer
Leave most in the ground and preserve the rest as chips or gari. Harvested cassava spoils in 2–3 days.
Share It
My Preservation Plan
Write the foods your household has now and the method you will use to save each one:
Food I have
Method I will use
How long it should last
Teach one household this week
I will teach (name):
The method I will show them:
My Pledge
I, ___________________________________, will save my family's food well so no harvest is wasted, and teach one other household what I have learned.
Signed
A word from Coach Addison
MyHealthy Africa
When you preserve well, no harvest is wasted and no season is feared. Teach these skills to your children, and they will carry your family through every hard time to come.