The world of food has always been an interesting field, both for culinary or for farming purposes. For many foods out there in the produce, grain, meat, and dairy industry, there are a couple of things to understand: whether or not they can hydrate themselves or should be dehydrated.
Even if dehydration is for the sake of preserving food for longer period of time, there are but many that begin to ask the following question:
What food should you not dehydrate?
The types of foods that many recommend should be dehydrated range from juicy and fatty meats to typical dairy products such as cheese and butter. Some include fruits and vegetables such as avocados and olives. There are some foods that can be dehydrated but are recommended not to for other more specific reasons.
By understanding which foods should be dehydrated can make your cooking as well as grocery shopping a whole lot easier. Knowing which specific foods you should not dehydrate, you can not only save yourself loads of time but also tons of money. It can also help you understand what each food brings in terms of the nutritional value as well.
What Foods Should Not Be Dehydrated?
There are many foods that culinary experts to even moms who make homemade meals recommend not dehydrating. Though the idea behind dehydrating food for the sake of preserving them and having them last longer, these specific foods won’t make it the cut and can cause them to go bad or even worse, depending on which food we are talking about in general.
For many such as avocados, nuts, and any other food containing high levels of fats that are perfect for the body, will lose their benefits.
Thus, here is a long list of some of the many foods that you should not dehydrate at all so that they still maintain their natural preservation:
Cheeses
Cheeses are one of many that should not dehydrate at all as it can lead the dairy product to go rancid if not spoiled entirely. Alongside that, you also remove the fat contents it has for nutritional value, which further increases the likelihood that it can go bad, spoiled, or moldy. If you do want to dehydrate cheese, then it is better to save your money and buy specially dried cheeses in the grocery store.
Butter & Milk
While we’re still on the subject of dairy products, the same reasoning for not dehydrating cheese goes for both milk and buttery products. In the case with butter, and exclusively butter, if you plan to dehydrate the contents it has, it can produce Botulism, which is an illness that goes ay beyond food poisoning and can even lead to paralysis.
With milk, the same line of reasoning occurs with cheese: milk is liquified cheese and has a high-fat content. By dehydrating its contents, it can lead to the milk smelling rancid as well.
In general, just leave the dairy products alone is the general consensus.
Nuts
Nuts contain higher levels of protein and fat that are perfect for the body. Nuts such as walnuts, which are considered the superfood for many nuts due to its health benefits, can easily lose its luster if it gets dehydrated. With that in mind, it is important to further note that nuts can be stored for long periods of time, even without being dehydrated.
Fatty & Lean Meats
Meats that have a high-fat consistency, which is what most of these foods have, should not be dehydrated as well. The ones that you can though it is highly not recommended you do so are turkey and chicken, but even then, they lose what fat contents they have. Plus, with how fast foods with fat content can go bad due to being dehydrated, the same goes for these meats.
Plus, it’s highly risky to dehydrate them and take time to do so. So if you plan to dehydrate meats, then it is best to simply just use very lean meats to get that job done. For the others, just leave them be.
Eggs
Though eggs can be an exception to this rule, it is best not to dehydrate them because of the amount of time you will lose when hydrating them to make baking goods such as cookies and pies or even dehydrating them to create slurries. So unless you are a pro at dehydration, best leave the eggs out of this one and make wholesome scrambled eggs instead.
Avocados
Much like the nuts mentioned above, avocados are the type of fruit that contains high levels of fat content to even additional fatty acids such as Omega-3. What’s more, is that if you do plan to dehydrate, it is not that they go bad when you do it. What ends up happening is that you’ll end up with a strange green mush similar to guacamole except without the taste that makes it as such.
Store-Bought Condiments
There is one important factor to consider for those that are planning to dehydrate store-bought condiments: the ingredients it contains. For many such as bottles of ketchup, mayonnaise, and even mustards, they contain high levels of chemicals as well as sugar in their array of ingredients, and by dehydrating these condiments, it can cause some mess if not some problems with your storage.
So in the end, it is a high risk that no many are willing to take, and it is best to leave them alone and store them as they are in the shelf before they are used.
Sodas, Water, & Juices
For these kinds of contents, dehydration is a really bad idea.
The best way to preserve them if you really want to is to can them or have them jellied so that they can last a lot longer. Though I’m not understanding why anyone would dehydrate these contents, but that is just something to ponder about in general.
Foods You Can Dehydrate
With a long list of foods that you should not dehydrate, that doesn’t mean that every single food shouldn’t.
There are some foods that you can dehydrate that can be well preserved for long periods of time and can still retain their nutritional value. For some foods, they do require special care and certain methods prior to the dehydration process such as those of the following:
- Fruits: apples and bananas are perfectly good for dehydration. Before dehydration, it is best to have them sprayed with lemon so it can last longer and retain their colors. Pears are included in this as well.
- Legumes: mushrooms, for example, need some special care. It is best to have them dried before continuing the process of dehydration. Some can be rinsed as well.
- Berries: blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries can be perfectly dehydrated. Well, for the other two as blueberries do need some care. Some tend to have them boiled so that their skins are easier to crack and be peeled back for dehydration.
- Leafy greens: for these guys, the best method for dehydration is to steam them or have them blanched before they can dehydrate. This way it stills lets them retain the nutritional value they had before the process and have them preserved for long periods of time.
- Low-acid fruits and vegetables: these types of produce are interesting due to their low levels of acid content. With that in mind, it is important to steam them or blanch them much like the leafy greens to preserve their nutritious contents.