Why Should I Preserve Food by Dehydrating?

Have you been thinking about buying a food dehydrator but aren’t sure if it will be beneficial? Do you wonder why you should preserve food by dehydrating it? Here are some things to know about dehydrating food, what you can put in a food dehydrator, and benefits of using a food dehydrator versus your oven.

What is a Food Dehydrator?

First of all, let’s go over what exactly a food dehydrator is. A food dehydrator is a type of appliance you can keep in your kitchen that dehydrates food.

What does that mean? And why should I preserve food by dehydrating? A food dehydrator is going to dry your foods over a long period of time at a very low temperature, which helps to boost the flavour and nutrients of those foods. The food that you have dehydrated will then be preserved and will store for much longer than if they were in their natural form with all that moisture.

From dried fruits to jerky or banana chips, dehydrating food turns it into a handy snack that is perfect for food preservation.

What are the Benefits of Dehydrated Food?

Why get a food dehydrator? There are actually many benefits you might not have considered yet. The first and most obvious benefit is that you get the foods you really enjoy eating. Maybe you aren’t a big steak eater, but you love beef jerky. The food dehydrator allows you to make your own beef jerky right at home. You save money and get to experiment with different flavor combinations.

Food preservation is a big benefit of dehydrating food. You might not always use your fruit before it goes bad and has to be thrown away, giving you 3 options: can the fruit, freeze it, or dehydrate it to be used as snacks.

Dehydrating food is also going to intensify the flavours, since the moisture is removed all that is left is the natural flavours of the foods.

Why Preserve Food Using a Food Dehydrator, Can’t I just Use My Oven?

You can certainly just use an oven to dehydrate food, but there are a few downsides to doing it this way. First, dehydrating food means using heat low and slow so you will have your oven on for a long period of time. This will both tie you to your kitchen for a long period of time as well as use up a lot more electricity.

It also ties up one of your largest appliances for cooking for a long period of time. If you have a food dehydrator, you can still use your oven for baking bread or something like that. Which also makes it a time saver, you can make several things at once without tying up a big appliance.

I have had a Nesco Snackmaster Food Dehydrator for several years and it has worked really great, but I am saving for an Excalibur dehydrator as they are the “Rolls Royce” of dehydrators and are more compact and easily stored than my Nesco.

What Are the Best Foods To Dehydrate?

There are a wide range of foods that can be dehydrated, but here are some popular options:

Fruits like mango, dates, apples, bananas, and berries. You can turn them into small pieces of fruits, fruit leather, or make chips from them. My kids’s favourites are dried mangoes, dried blueberries and homemade apple peach fruit leather!

Vegetable such as onions, garlic, tomatoes (homemade sun-dried tomatoes anyone?). Leafy greens such as kale and spinach can be dehydrated and then turned into a super greens powder.

Meats for jerky snacks, such as beef jerky or turkey jerky.

Herbs if you want to have dried herbs from your own fresh herbs, in order to help them last longer and not go to waste.

The good news is that food dehydrators come with simple instructions, so it is easy to get started and dehydrate your food. Experiment with different varieties to see what handy snacks you can come up with!

Best Dehydrating Food Recipe Books

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Why Should I Preserve Food by Dehydrating?

Table of Contents

What is a Food Dehydrator?

What are the Benefits of Dehydrated Food?