Food dehydrator and dehydration discussion
I dont have any particular question just want to start food dehydration discussion as I am new to the subject.
We are drowning in tomatoes, every day my wife picks up 2-3kg of fresh ones, even now she is roasting 3 full baking dishes of them. I think this is very energy inefficient, also any kind of processing that burns food and creates ash (grilling, roasting, baking) is carcinogenic. Sun drying would be ideal, but it seems fairly impractical to do at home due to birds, insects, rain, and hassle of taking it back and forth for days, so closest best thing in my opinion is dehydrator with timer - setup and forget.
I never owned a dehydrator and my know how is only theoretical, but concept seems solid - remove most of water from the food without burning it, sterilize with quick high heat to kill surviving bacteria and get perfectly preserved food without any artificial preservatives that will last long time while keeping most of original flavours when rehydrated. Beats freezing, which destroys cellular structure of food and usually alters the flavours.
Just ordered this dehydrator from US Walmart, only $50, so about $66 canadian, has small footprint 1ft2 and with 14" height should fit nicely in countertop cabinet space with all 8 trays while providing 8 ft2 of drying space. I like that is fully transparent, so one can check process from every angle. Only after I bought it I noticed it is not BPA free (perhaps that is why it's on clearance because later models looking the same seem to be), but then FDA claims BPA does not have documented negative health effect plus it can be mitigated with strips of parchment paper liner so food does not come to direct contact with tray, which also seems to be good idea for cleanup reasons.
We are drowning in tomatoes, every day my wife picks up 2-3kg of fresh ones, even now she is roasting 3 full baking dishes of them. I think this is very energy inefficient, also any kind of processing that burns food and creates ash (grilling, roasting, baking) is carcinogenic. Sun drying would be ideal, but it seems fairly impractical to do at home due to birds, insects, rain, and hassle of taking it back and forth for days, so closest best thing in my opinion is dehydrator with timer - setup and forget.
I never owned a dehydrator and my know how is only theoretical, but concept seems solid - remove most of water from the food without burning it, sterilize with quick high heat to kill surviving bacteria and get perfectly preserved food without any artificial preservatives that will last long time while keeping most of original flavours when rehydrated. Beats freezing, which destroys cellular structure of food and usually alters the flavours.
Just ordered this dehydrator from US Walmart, only $50, so about $66 canadian, has small footprint 1ft2 and with 14" height should fit nicely in countertop cabinet space with all 8 trays while providing 8 ft2 of drying space. I like that is fully transparent, so one can check process from every angle. Only after I bought it I noticed it is not BPA free (perhaps that is why it's on clearance because later models looking the same seem to be), but then FDA claims BPA does not have documented negative health effect plus it can be mitigated with strips of parchment paper liner so food does not come to direct contact with tray, which also seems to be good idea for cleanup reasons.
Last edited by ramon2 on Sep 1st, 2019 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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