A Thirst For Dehydrating

Several years ago, after a long period of health issues, my life took a dramatic turn when I shifted my diet to be raw-food based, and I began to embrace foods intended to nourish and heal my body. At this transitional time, I referred often to a cookbook called “Raw Food Real World” as a way to learn how to incorporate more than apples and carrots into my daily routine. From this resource, I learned the value of a food dehydrator to add variety and interest to my diet.

While proponents of a raw food diet believe cooking destroys not only many of the vitamins in food but also enzymes that may be important to health, dehydrators are beneficial for preparing foods that are uncooked or cooked at low temperatures. Technically, food that reaches 118 degrees is not considered raw, as the nutritional value may diminish at higher temperatures. On a raw food diet,however, dehydrating temperatures for foods that still qualify as raw once dried are usually between 105 and 115 degrees, lower than the 135 to 150 degrees usually recommended for drying fruits and vegetables.Keep in mind that dried raw foods may take up to one-third longer drying times than called for in typical dehydration recipes.