Have you ever considered what it might be like to come home from work and not be stressed about what to make for a healthy dinner for the family? I used to think that it was quite a challenge.
I mean, I was working all day and in the evening coming home to take care of my two kids, one 4 yrs old and one 3 yrs old.
Needless to say, we were busy - and I was looking for a way to speed up my food preparation time without having to resort to fast food restaurants.
Plus, I knew that conventional cooking with a stove or oven heats the food far above 100 degrees, which destroys a significant amount of the vitamins and minerals in the food.
That's when a friend of mine got me hooked on using a food dehydrator to prepare my food.
I say prepare, as opposed to cook, because with a dehydrator there is no real cooking per se.
If you're not familiar with how these machines work, a food dehydrator is a special purpose heating device which holds anywhere from one to ten trays (sometimes even more), upon which you place your own sliced food.
It uses the oldest method known to man for cooking without actually cooking - dehydration.
Basically, you put your food into the dehydrator and plug it in, and the food is gradually heated and the moisture removed.
The heat never rises above a certain point, which has the result of retaining as much of the nutritional content in the food as possible.
But perhaps the best part of using dehydrators is how delicious the result is! For starters, the food tastes fresh and at the same time also feels very much like it has been cooked.
That alone sold me on the idea.
But then I realized after using one of my own that it really cut down my food preparation time significantly.
Instead of having to prepare food right before every meal, which often took me a half an hour to do, I discovered that I could do all the cutting and other preparation in advance.
Now, I cut up our fruits and vegetables only one or twice per week and either refrigerate or freeze them.
Then I can use the dehydrator all at once and the food keeps for several days or longer.
When I get home from work I only need to do minimal preparation with conventional cooking.
Here are a couple tips I can recommend to get the most out of your dehydrator.
First, as I mentioned above, prepare your food in advance.
This alone will save you so much time, which you can spend doing something other than slaving in the kitchen.
Second, when you're shopping for a dehydrator make sure that the model you choose has enough trays for your usage - the more you want to prepare at once, the larger the machine you should get.
This is largely a factor of your family size.
Personally, I use a nine tray Excalibur machine and it works great for our family of five.
Thanks for reading! I hope this article got you thinking about getting started with food dehydration.
The food tastes great, and the nutritional benefits are there for you and your family.
Plus, with just a little planning it can also save you lots of time in your food preparation.
I'll try to write a follow up article when I can to share more of my experience with our dehydrator and other tips I've learned.
Happy dining!