A Guide To Dehydrating Foods

What is dehydrated food?

Forms of food dehydration, or food drying, have been around for tens of thousands of years and is an ancient method of food preservation. It can be traced back as early as 12,000 B.C. in the Middle East where fresh fruits and vegetables would be dried in the hot sun, and then accessible regardless of the season. 

Why dehydrate your food?  

By removing water from foods, you stop bacteria, yeasts and moulds from being able to grow meaning it can last ages without being refrigerated – pretty simple and effective. Another big incentive of dehydrating foods is that fruits and vegetables hold on to the majority of their nutrients, sometimes lost in cooking, for example.

It’s because of this that eating dehydrated foods is a big part of raw vegan diets – if you want to know more about being raw and vegan then check out our post on raw veganism here. 

Which foods can I dehydrate? 

Because you’re removing the water content from foods when you dehydrate them, you can essentially do it to anything :

• Bananas
• Apples
• Any seasonal fruits
• Roots vegetables for crisps
• Chillies
• Nuts
• Seeds 
• Sprouted grains 

Here’s a great guide from Earth Easy for all the specifics.

How to dehydrate food 

Here are a few different methods for food dehydration, and what they’re most effective for:

• Sun drying – if you’d like to hark back to original methods of dehydration, then give this a go. Although do be warned; you need constant and reliable sun (so, maybe not the UK) and about two days to spare
• Air drying – this is a great way to preserve fresh herbs, and it is most effective in the shade. Read more here
• Oven drying – be sure to keep temperatures below 60 degrees celsius otherwise it just becomes cooking again
• Electric dehydration – using an electric food dehydrator like this is probably the quickest and most efficient way to dehydrate 

Photo credits: One Concept and Wayfair

How should I store my newly dehydrated food? 

This is a great opportunity to use any spare airtight containers you’ve got around – mason jars, lunchboxes or empty jam jars. Just make sure they’re properly cleaned and dry first.