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You’ve more than likely heard some buzz about food dehydrating, but maybe you don’t completely understand what it’s all about. Or maybe you’ve never tried it yourself.
Either way, I’m here to help you better understand the benefits of dehydrating food because if you aren’t already doing it, you’re really missing out!
There are many remarkable reasons drying food can be amazing for your health, your budget, and your life. So, let’s dive right in and talk about them!
Here are the top benefits of food dehydrating and why it’s a great process to add to your life:
A food dehydrator benefits you by retaining the original vitamins, minerals, and natural enzymes of foods far better than other forms of food preservation or cooking. In fact, a study in Journal of the American College of Nutrition in 2005 showed dried fruits like dried cranberries, grapes, and plums had twice the amount of antioxidants as their fresh versions!
This is important in our modern world where we’re surrounded by packaged and chemically altered foods with very little nutritive value.
Plus, most healthy foods aren’t available year-round (or they don’t taste as good and are more expensive when not in-season), so dehydrating them to enjoy any time is a great way to maintain variety while eating healthy throughout the year.
And besides the health benefits of food dehydration, did I mention there are TONS of delicious options to choose from? Examples of foods you can make in a dehydrator include:
Dried fruit snacks or chips from apples, bananas, oranges, pears, prunes, or lemons
Veggie chips from zucchini, kale, carrots, green beans, or sweet potatoes (here’s a great guide for dehydrating vegetables)
Jerky from beef, salmon, chicken, or lamb
Fruit leathers made from pureed dried fruits (basically like the fruit version of beef jerky)
Sun-dried (dehydrated) tomatoes
Granola and crispy nuts and seeds
Raw crackers or breads
Full meals that can be rehydrated later
Dried herbs and flowers
And so much more!
Go ahead and explore with these easy and healthy dehydrator recipes.
Dehydrated food contains only one ingredient: the food you’re dehydrating. No need to worry about extra pesky chemicals or ingredients you can’t pronounce being added to it.
Not only that, home-dehydrated fruits and veggies can be good for months—often up to a whole year! And store-bought dehydrated foods can last many, many years.
We could all use more ways to save money, right? Well, imagine buying bulk produce at a discounted rate (at your local orchard or grocery store), dehydrating it at home, and having it available to eat at any time all throughout the year.
Think: less extra trips to the grocery store for produce, less use of gas, and having “gourmet” foods like sun-dried tomatoes or kale chips—without any added oils, preservatives, salts, or sugars— for a fraction of the packaged price.
With dehydrating, all of this is possible! The cost-efficiency of food dehydration is really amazing.
Now, let’s talk storage. The benefits of dehydrating food for preservation are twofold:
That means you’ll have more healthy foods in your kitchen for a longer period of time without worrying about spoiling. So it's essential to invest in key storage items like mason jars and other long term storage containers - that's one of the best moves you can make. Then you can say adiós to store-bought packaged foods and old, moldy produce!
It’s no secret that homemade meals and snacks are better choices over their restaurant or packaged versions because you can control the ingredients that go into them. You can batch-prepare your dehydrated foods so you ALWAYS have an arsenal of healthy options to grab from home.
That’s not all, though. A food dehydrator can do many other things beyond just make dehydrated foods! You can use for making homemade items like:
Herbal teas
Dog treats
Paper (from drying the pulp of recycled items)
So, besides improving your health and saving you money, dehydrating is great for improving several aspects of your home life, as well.
A common complain about eating healthy is that it’s hard to do while traveling. I can understand the reasoning, but that’s where the benefits of a food dehydrator can save you from resorting to the drive-through.
Dehydrating gives you healthy, non-messy snacks ready to grab-n-go, making them extremely easy to take with you anywhere—in the car, on a plane, while backpacking, or on a camping trip, etc.
Who needs fast food when you can have nutritious dried fruits, veggies, grains, and all sorts of good foods with you at any time?
Fruits and veggies, galore! These are obviously staples on a plant-based diet. And just from looking at the dehydrated food examples in #1, you can see the majority of them are plants.
There are tons of plant-based recipes you can make with a food dehydrator, such as crackers, fruit snacks, raw bread, and vegan jerky to name a few. And with a dehydrator cookbook or other vegan cookbook recipe guides in hand, you're bound to whip up an endless amount of seriously delicious and healthy plant-based food options.
How many times have you bought a lot of produce at the store only to realise you can’t eat it all before it goes bad or gets too ripe? I know it’s happened to me many times.
But since dehydrating extends shelf life so well, you can avoid ever having to throw out extra foods and eliminate unnecessary waste. You’ll be getting the most out of food you purchase.
You know the saying, “you can never be too prepared”? From a lost job to a natural disaster, you can never know for sure what might happen.
However, you do have some control over your level of emergency preparedness. And dehydrated foods are the perfect resource for this since you’ll always have access to a less-perishable, healthy, and well-preserved food supply.
Besides drying individual foods, you can also dehydrate entire meals for your family so that in case of an emergency, all you’d have to do is add water when ready to eat.
These nine benefits of dehydrating food demonstrate how the process helps you eat better, live better, and increase your levels of preparedness and food preservation in a whole new way. The importance is truly life-changing!
So, what do you think? Did you enjoy this post? Are you going to try dehydrating your own foods?
Leave a comment below with your thoughts, and don’t forget to share this post with someone else who could also benefit from food dehydration!