As I have stated before, the warmer weather inspires me to re-explore raw foods. Fruits and vegetables in their raw state are the most nutrient dense, easy to digest and have powerful healing properties for the body. As far as alkalinity goes, it has been proven that cooking food reduces the alkaline footprint in the body, in order to combat this food really should never be heated above 180 degrees.

This is where a dehydrator comes in handy. Now I know that dehydrating can seems scary and of course there are some draw backs involved. The first being that you do need to plan ahead, it takes a few hours to 'cook' food in a dehydrator and it does take time to prepare the food for dehydrating - there is a lot of thinly slicing involved.

Once you have all of that slicing finished and you have set aside the time to dehydrate it is really quite simple and much healthier than other forms of preservation. When dehydrating you do not have to add any chemicals, salts, sugars, or oils. You simply place the food in the dehydrator and let the magic happen. A squirt of lemon juice will keep the color bright but other than that there is no need for additional preparations.

Dehydrating is an efficient way of preserving food. Lets say you head to your local farm market or grocery and they have a case of peaches reduced as they are on the brink of spoiling. A lot of people would can those peaches or slice and freeze them, both of which takes up significant space. Dehydrating takes up minimal space and allows for you to keep food fresh for long periods of time especially when bought in bulk at peak season.

In your dehydrator you can dehydrate fruits, vegetable, make fruit leathers, crackers, veggie burgers, cookies, and even warm soups if you so desire. You can utilize the dehydrated food in other recipes enjoy it on its own and pack it up as a healthy snack while on the go.

This past week I bought a bunch of fruit that was on the brink, my local farm store had papayas, mangos, and bananas that were all starting to turn so I bought up a bunch and decided to whip out my trusty dehydrator. I had also juiced earlier in the week and had a good quantity of pulp left so I decided to make a batch of juice pulp crackers and juice pulp veggie balls (simply mix the pulp with a little water and flax meal and whatever spices you want and tada - delicious).

Tips:

Slice thinly for the least amount of time

Sprinkle with lemon juice to preserve color

Dehydrate until very dry if you are going to be storing for a long period of time. Placing in a sealed plastic bag for a few hours before vacuum sealing stabilizes the moisture content.

To rehydrate, simply soak in warm water

The best tip of all is to experiment, some of my favorite dehydrated foods are okra and asparagus, they taste awesome without being fried like those versions sold in the supermarket!