Dehydrating food literally dates back to about 12,000 BC.

Since then, the technology has come a long way so that just about anyone can do it quickly, easily and inexpensively.

Dehydrating Food Saves Everything:

• Money: produce is free from your survival garden, buy seasonal produce in bulk, no refrigeration is required, produces an extra-long shelf life.

• Space: takes up A LOT less storage space then cans or bottles

• Your Health: Dried foods are safe… drying prevents bacteria and mold growth. Dehydrating removes the water from the food, but leaves the vitamins and minerals.

• Your Time: just slice, prep, dry, pack and store

• Your Taste Buds: dried foods have amazing intense flavor and do not melt into a sticky mess
Whether you want to preserve fruits and vegetables from your garden or the produce from your local farmers market… dehydrating food is the right method for you!

What are the Advantages of Food Dehydrating?

There are many advantages to dehydrating your own food. You can:

• Preserve the goodness during the harvest.

• Save your favorite foods for future use.

• Save precious space in your emergency food storage.

• Prevent that end of the season waist.

Here is an article that talks about the advantages of food dehydrating.

How Does Dehydrating Preserve Food?

Drying removes the moisture from the food so bacteria, yeast and mold cannot grow and spoil the food. Drying also slows down the action of enzymes (naturally occurring substances which cause foods to ripen), but does not inactivate them.

Warm temperatures cause the moisture to evaporate. Air current speeds up drying by moving the surrounding moist air away from the food.

Because drying removes moisture, the food becomes smaller and lighter in weight. When the food is ready for use, the water is added back, and the food returns to its original shape.

How do I Get My Food Dried?

There are several different ways of dehydrating food, each has their own advantages.

Some of these methods are:

• In a electric food dehydrator,

• in an oven,

• by the sun itself,

• or by using a solar dehydrating unit.

All of these methods work by using the right combination of warm temperatures, low humidity and air current. We will discuss these options below:

How Do I Choose the Best Food Dehydrator For Me?

Picking the Best Food Dehydrator is a personal choice.

You need to consider:

• How much you will use it

• Price

• what you are using it for

Can I use My Oven to Dehydrate Food?

You sure can! Everyone who has an oven can learn how to dehydrate food. By combining heat, low humidity and air flow, an oven can be used as a dehydrator.

Your oven is perfect for occasional drying of meat jerky, fruit leathers, and banana chips or for preserving excess vegetables like celery or mushrooms. Since your oven is needed for every day cooking, and the excessive use of electricity or fuel, it may not work out if you want to dry your whole survival garden harvest, but for occasional drying it works great.

I like to use my oven to dry foods in the winter. With the door propped open for hours at a time it really warms up the house for me.

Oven drying is slower than using a dehydrator because it does not have a built-in fan for the air movement.

Timing could be an issue. It takes twice as long to dry food in an oven than it does in a dehydrator. Thus, the oven is not as efficient as a dehydrator and uses more energy. Because of the make-up, convection ovens do speed up the process. Convection ovens do have fans and they are getting more popular. There are even Tabletop Convection Ovens if you choose.

What is the Best Way to Dry Fruit?

Dried fruits are unique, tasty and nutritious.

Some say only the freshest fruit, but it is my experience that the fruit that is almost over ripe turns out the sweetest when dried.

• Begin by washing the fruit.

• Coring or remove the pits and cut out any bad spots.

• Fruits can be cut in half or sliced. Some fruits like berries and cherries, can be left whole.

• The peel can be left on the fruit, but un-peeled fruit takes longer to dry.

• Thin, uniform, peeled slices dry the fastest.

• Apples can be cored and sliced in rings, wedges, or chips. Bananas can be sliced in chips or sticks. Apricots can be cut in half.

• Fruits dried whole must be “checked” (breaking the skin) and take the longest to dry.

How do I Dry Vegetables?

When learning how to dehydrate food, it's important to know the different methods of drying fruits versus drying vegetables:

• Vegetables contain less acid than fruits therefor need to be dried until they are brittle. At this stage, only 10% moisture remains and no organisms can grow in the food.

• Most vegetables need to be blanched before drying. Blanching relaxes the tissue walls so moisture can get through and stops the enzyme action that causes change in color and flavor.

• Prepare only as many vegetables as can be dried at one time.

• Dry vegetables in a single layer on the drying rack.

• Cool and package.

Where' the Meat?

Dehydrated meat is a great ay to add protein to your emergency food storage.

Jerky is great, but did you realize that you can dry most any kind of meat and preserve it in your food storage for years.

Dried meats can be added to any recipe that call fro fresh meat, once it has been rehydrated.

Dried meat is a fun and creative way to add variety to your daily menus.

How do I Package, Store and Use Dried Foods?

To package and store your dehydrated emergency food:

Make sure the dried food is completely cool before packaging.

Use dry, moister proof containers.

Store the packaged food in a cool dark place.

USING DRIED FOODS

Dried fruits can be eaten as is or reconstituted. Dried vegetables must be reconstituted. Once reconstituted, dried fruits or vegetables are treated as fresh.

To reconstitute dried fruits or vegetables, add water to the fruit or vegetable and soak until the desired volume is restored. Do not over-soak the food. Over-soaking produces loss of flavor and a mushy, water-logged texture.

For soups and stews, add the dehydrated vegetables without re-hydrating them. They will rehydrate as the soup or stew cooks. Also, leafy vegetables and tomatoes do not need soaking.
Add enough water to cover and simmer until tender. CAUTION! If soaking takes more than 2 hours, refrigerate the product for the remainder of the time.

Dehydrating food is one alternative method to freezing or canning that takes up less space and is about the same amount of work. In some cases, beyond the initial investment, dehydration is also less expensive.

To learn how to dehydrate food, check out All Things Emergency Prepared.