Dehydrating and storing food is one of the best ways to ensure you get the most out of your fruits, meats, and vegetables. When you’ve got a lot of food, but don’t think you’ll be able to use and consume it all while it’s still fresh, dehydrating helps you preserve it to enjoy it later on.
By dehydrating foods, you are reducing the moisture level to give it longer-lasting shelf life. Though the amount of water content in dehydrated foods is significantly lowered, it does not compromise the vitamin levels. This means you can enjoy all the great nutritional benefits from dehydrated food without having to worry about it going bad too quickly.
Some of the best foods to dehydrate include strawberries, apples, bananas, lean beef, tomatoes, mangoes, lean buffalo, and much more. Dehydrating gives them a unique flavor that can be consumed on their own as a snack, or used in another meal.
Most often, people will use a food dehydrator to dehydrate their food. However, it is possible to dehydrate food without a food dehydrator by using your oven.
First, you’ll want to ensure your food is cut into even pieces to allow for equal dehydration throughout. After cutting, soaking your fruits and vegetables in lemon water will help them maintain their color and flavor. To make jerky, you can marinate your meat in your chosen flavor. From here, you can place them in your oven on the lowest setting for an hour or more to dehydrate them. Fruits and vegetables will likely take the same amount of time to dehydrate, but for foods like lean meats, you may need to keep them in the oven a bit longer.
This process certainly works to dehydrate your food, however, it takes up a lot of space in your oven, and may not always yield the intended results. It’s easy to unevenly dehydrate food in an oven, potentially wasting it. Using a food dehydrator makes the process simpler, and more often gives you the results you want so you can enjoy your dehydrated food every time.
A food dehydrator is a staple kitchen appliance for anyone who likes to enjoy dehydrated food often. The Elechomes 8 Layer Large Capacity Food Dehydrator is a great choice for anyone looking to dehydrate food on a regular basis.
The 8 Layer Large Capacity Food Dehydrator 8-tray layout makes it easy to place your food for dehydration, allowing you to dehydrate a variety of foods all in one sitting. It has the capacity to heat for up to 99 hours, ideal for longer-term dehydration processes. What’s more, the temperature choices range from 100-172 degrees, which helps to dehydrate the more complicated foods, like beef jerky, more efficiently for your various dehydrated food recipes.
Overall, using a food dehydrator is the best and easiest way to enjoy your dehydrated goods. After you get this food dehydrator, you’ll wonder how you ever used an oven to dehydrate your food!
Sources:
How to Dehydrate Fruits and Vegetables
Digvir S. Jayas, in Reference Module in Food Science, 2016
