My introduction to dehydrating was driven initially by an interest in healthy eating.
“Eat at least five fruits and vegetables a day” was the mantra when I started – this number has now increased to 10! Here is a recent article published in the Telegraph:
Eat 10 fruit and veg a day for a longer life, not five
One portion is approximately the size of your fist. Ten of these a day is a big ask!
That was the first thing that got me thinking. How can I easily add more fruit and vegetables to my daily diet?
Answer……..
DEHYDRATING!
Its not too hard to nibble throughout the day on dried apple or pear slices (incredibly sweet!) and adding crumbled greens or fruit and vegetable powders to my cooked dishes is hardly noticeable. I cook chicken with powdered orange, fish with powdered lemon, hamburgers with powdered cherries – easy, simple, effective – and I feel better than I did in my 30’s!
Then there’s another aspect of dehydrating that really appeals to me.
I live alone (with a very old cat) and I love it. However it does create a number of problems when it comes to shopping for food and creating healthy meals, especially if you are a pensioner on a limited income!
Some articles I have read focus on the fact that living alone leads to hasty preparation of non nutritional meals. I am inclined to disgaree, based on my own experience.
These are some other bigger issues that in my opinion make good nutrition for singles harder to achieve:
- Package sizes of fresh food available in the supermarket. If I buy a whole lettuce I end up throwing half of it away as I cannot preserve it OR eat it fast enough. Potatoes go green before I can get through a bag, so I have to buy by weight which usually costs more.
- Limited Storage space. If you live alone you propably dont have too much storage space, including a big enough freezer!
- Cost of electricity. If you are only cooking one meal at a time, it seems wasteful of electricity. Even if you cook enough for more than one meal and freeze meals – see the previous problem. It also costs electricity to run a big freezer – whereas dried food only needs a small amount of space.
- In Season Fruit and Veg. When these are cheap I can’t take advantage of this because I cannot eat big quantities all on my own.