How to Use a Food Dehydrator

What is a dehydrator and why should you buy one?

We call the food dehydrator the “raw foodist oven,” because it helps you achieve the “cooked feeling” without having to cook your foods and maintaining all the nutrients and enzymes naturally present in healing foods.

Read some of our previous posts to learn more about the benefits of raw food and why we don’t cook food:

• Hidden Dangers of Cooked Food
• Raw Vegan Food for Beginners
• How to Eat Warm Food on a Raw Diet
  
  

If you love raw vegan food, but miss the warmth and flavors you can achieve when cooking, then the dehydrator is for you. With a dehydrator, you can preserve the natural enzymes in food while still enjoying many of the tastes and sensations of cooked/baked food.

What type of food dehydrator should I buy?

There are two main types of dehydrators: vertical flow and horizontal flow (flow refers to the airflow from the engine that allows the dehydration process). Let’s look at their basic characteristics to help you choose a dehydrator.

Vertical Flow Dehydrator

• Also called stackable unit food dehydrators.
• The heat source is located at the base or the top of the dehydrator.
• Don’t spread the heat uniformly (food on different trays dehydrates at different rates).
• Flavors can be mixed, due to the vertical flow of air.
• In general, more affordable than horizontal dehydrators.
• Can have various shapes and forms.
• Can usually be expanded with the addition of trays.
• Stackable, lighter, and easier to store.
• Usually made with plastic materials.
  
  

Horizontal flow dehydrator

• Also called a shelf tray food dehydrator.
• The heat source is located in the back of the dehydrator (more similar to an oven).
• Heat spreads uniformly through all the trays (even dehydrating time between trays).
• It is less likely that flavors will mix.
• Often more expensive than vertical models.
• Usually box-shaped form.
• Not expandable.
• Usually bigger, heavier, and take up more space.
• Can be made of food-grade stainless steel.
  
  

We recommend a horizontal flow dehydrator, which is what we use at An Oasis of Healing kitchen.

Why?

Horizontal dehydrators have many benefits:

• More drying space
• The trays are easy to insert and remove
• The trays and dehydrator are easy to load with food
• Allows more flexibility in terms of vertical space – you can omit a tray if you need extra space
• Option of a stainless steel dehydrator, instead of plastic
  
  

Most importantly: the food is uniformly dehydrated in each tray and between different trays.

Excalibur® is one of our favorite dehydrators. The only downside is that it is made of plastic and a bit noisy. For a silent dehydrator, we recommend the stainless-steel Samson®.

How to use a dehydrator

Dehydrators are usually very simple to use.

Features to look for

Helpful features are a thermostat, a timer, and an auto-shutoff system. This will allow you to select dehydration temperatures, times, and the possibility of shutting off when you are not present. Considering that foods dehydrate at different rates, and may require different temperatures and timing, these are important features for your dehydrator. Furthermore, food may take 24 to 48 hours to dehydrate (or more), and you can often forget it is there, so being able to set your dehydrator to shut off automatically can be very useful.

Temperature

We recommend dehydrating most foods at a temperature of 105 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, to preserve the nutrients and heat-sensitive enzymes that you want to get from healing foods. The exception might be certain “thick” or “dense” dishes, like bread, crusts, and loaves, that may require a higher initial temperature to speed up dehydration and prevent the growth of mold.

Time

Dehydration times vary greatly depending on the type of food you are dehydrating. It might be two hours to two days or more. Follow recipe instructions, and check texture and consistency to make sure you achieve the desired results. That said, dehydrators are very “forgiving,” meaning even if you forget food or let it dehydrate for too long, it won’t usually greatly impact the final result.

If the food you are dehydrating is meant to be stored for a long period (weeks or months, like dehydrated nuts and seeds, or tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc.), then try it and make sure it is dried throughout to avoid microbial overgrowth during storage and improve preservation.

What can you make in a dehydrator?

Sometimes people buy a dehydrator, and they don’t know what to do with it, so it ends up forgotten in some corner. We are here to help you change that! We will introduce you to some of the possible uses of a dehydrator, along with recipes that you can try right away!