Do you use a Food Dehydrator?

thisnthat

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I was thinking this would be a good idea. One could easily dry fruits and veggies to use for snacking or to store for cooking. You could even make your own trail mix and stuff like that. We used to have a dehydrator, and I loved when my dad made dried apricots and bananas. They were like having your own all-natural candy.
 
Yes, I have one. I have incorporated a lot of raw food into my diet and currently also use the dehydrator for making cashew nut cheese and strangely, sourdough bread as well. It is worth the investment if you are prepared to make the effort of using it frequently and learning to make raw onion bread and things like that. I went with a second hand Excalibur dehydrator off eBay. I only got a 5 tray one but that is big enough most of the time. I also found the 5 tray version quieter than the 9 tray version which I had had previously but was persuaded to lend it to my brother-in-law.
 
I'd actually never thought about buying one myself until this post! I love dried fruits - apricots, pears, peaches, the list goes on! I think in the height of summer when I can get lots of those fruits for cheap, it would probably end up paying for itself if I was drying my own fruits rather than buying packets of them at the store. Plus a lot of the time those dried fruits that are at the supermarket have preserving agents and stuff in them that aren't so good for you. If I was doing it myself I'd know that there were no extra artificial things involved which I would much prefer from a health perspective!
 
I'd actually never thought about buying one myself until this post! I love dried fruits - apricots, pears, peaches, the list goes on! I think in the height of summer when I can get lots of those fruits for cheap, it would probably end up paying for itself if I was drying my own fruits rather than buying packets of them at the store. Plus a lot of the time those dried fruits that are at the supermarket have preserving agents and stuff in them that aren't so good for you. If I was doing it myself I'd know that there were no extra artificial things involved which I would much prefer from a health perspective!
One of my favourite autumn hobbies is harvesting wild fruits. There are loads that can be harvested and dried for preservation, some I harvest and simply freeze as they are (blackberries) and others I make into fruit leathers. It is huge fun, but takes a lot of time and co-ordination not to mention the 3-4 weeks where the fruits (and other such delights) are at their best. It makes those weeks very busy, but any wild harvest is great. You just need to be careful with where you collect your fruits and nuts from, making sure that there are no significant polluters around the area and that you are not removing the entire food source for wild life, so look for areas where the fruit is rotting on the plants, that is an area that you can safely harvest without any significant impact on the local wildlife. I am lucky that we have plenty of such areas locally; living rurally helps!
 
I wish I had one. I like a variety of dehydrated fruits. They make great snacks.
 
I had one years ago, but the noise drove me nuts. It was like having a vacuum on for hours at a time. I guess I'm kinda crazy that way. I stopped using it, and I haven't pulled it out since. Fortunately, I didn't buy it new, so I didn't lose that much in the experiment. Who knows, now that I'm older and wiser, I may try again the future.