Why dehydrate your food? Is it the healthiest method of food preservation, or is food dehydration just more convenient?
I began to ask myself these questions a couple of years ago when I got into eating raw food. I had been happily using my Excalibur 5 Tray Food Dehydrator for a few months when someone challenged my notion that dehydrating was healthier than canning. The person asserted that you would surely preserve more nutrients with canning, because dehydrating food means cutting or slicing it up and leaving it exposed to the air for a relatively long period of time. That oxidation causes a loss of nutrient value.
That bugged me. I knew that for sure dehydrating on low temperatures keeps the food’s enzymes alive, and that was important to me. But what if I was saving the enzymes meant losing a good chunk of the food’s vitamins, minerals and other nutrients?
The World Wide Web to the rescue! A brief search reassured me that indeed, food dehydration is the superior method of preservation.
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Six reasons to choose dehydrating over canning
- The nutrient value lost during the cutting and dehydrating process is actually less than what is lost through the cooking process. And, as I mentioned above, as long as you dehydrate at low temperatures, the life-giving enzymes are kept in tact.
- Easy to do. No standing for hours in a hot kitchen. Simply put your food in the dehydrator and leave it until it’s dry. All you have to do is check it every few hours to see if it’s done.
- Economical. No buying canning jars and huge vats. Well, okay, the Excalibur Food Dehydrator will put a dent in your budget at first (and believe me, you don’t want to by the el-cheapos from discount department stores), but the convenience and effectiveness will be well worth every cent! And besides, if you want to be really cheap frugal, you could always build a solar dehydrator.
- Dehydrating food requires MUCH less storage room than canned food. And all the people in the South who don’t have a basement said, “AMEN!”
- No preservatives necessary. The food will keep without salt or sugar, making it even healthier than canned food.
- Safe. As long as you dehydrate a given food long enough, all the moisture will be removed. This makes it impermeable to botulism and mold. Dehydrated food will also last for years at room temperature.
Why dehydrate? If you need to do something with excess produce, or follow through on your plan to have an emergency supply of food, dehydration is perhaps the best way to preserve it!