Hold On To the Taste of Summer in Minnesota

This time of year, hopefully you’re getting to have a little more down time. Something more leisurely than the normal work week. If you’re like me, when I’m more relaxed, I like to munch on some snacks. 

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I’ve been focused on losing weight lately and trying to eat better. Recently my wife and I were hanging out with some friends, and we were offered some dehydrated fruits to snack on. 

It wasn’t my first time having dehydrated fruits, but the mixture they had was impressive. I never knew you could dehydrate watermelon, but you can. And man, is it good.  

They also had coconut, tangerines, strawberries, and papaya, and they were all delicious. And it’s easy to find these fruits and vegetables too in stores that you can take home that day, or you can order your favorites online.  

But it got me thinking about doing it ourselves. Now I’m not fluent in “kitchen speak”, meaning I can make a few basic things, but for the most part when it comes to working in the kitchen, I can be very dangerous.  

After a quick search online of a few big box companies I learned that dehydrators range in size and in price. You can darn near run your own dehydrating company from your kitchen, basement or garage if you have the space and the money for one of the larger dehydrators. 

But the basic to slightly advanced models that can fit on your kitchen counter can range in price from $40-$70, which is much more doable for most of us on a budget. 

Then I started thinking, what are the benefits to dehydrating food, other than the way most of it tastes. And one of the first things I discovered is that it can be relatively inexpensive to do. Who can’t be onboard with that idea? 

There are additional advantages to dehydrating your own fruits, vegetables, and meats. The first is they last a lot longer than if you have to refrigerate them.  

Plus, you can retain a good amount of the nutritional value. Dehydrating will concentrate vitamins, fiber, antioxidants, minerals, proteins and fats. Although those values may not be as high as when the food was fresh, for most fruits and vegetables, the amount is still high.  

You can also use your dehydrated fruits and veggies for adding color to foods and to make and flavor sauces.  

If we look at the advantages, we must also look at the other side of the coin. One of the biggest knocks on doing the dehydrating yourself is that it can take a long time to do.  This isn’t the case for everything you might like to dehydrate, but some things will take longer. 

Another area to be mindful of is that if you don’t dehydrate the food fully and properly, bacteria can set up and food poising moves in. And then of course, make sure you use the right amount of time for the dehydration process. If the result comes out too hard it can mean that what you dehydrated is overcooked. Dehydrated food shouldn’t be brittle.  

But it also shouldn’t be too chewy. That’s a sign it wasn’t in the dehydrator long enough. 

There may be some trial and error, but because of the shelf life being so long, dehydrating food could be a way to enjoy some flavors of summer when the Minnesota winters move back in and make it worth the effort.