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??'s Re: Dehydrating

I just got a Nesco American Harvest Dehydrator. Can’t afford Excalibur and wasn’t sure how much I would use one so didn’t want to invest a lot right away. Anyway, in reading the booklet that came with it, it says vegetables must be steam blanched before dehydrating. Is this really necessary? It seems to defeat the purpose and wouldn’t steaming be too high a temperature to expose something to if you want to keep it raw. I made eggplant pizza and sweet potato chips and they came out fine. I didn’t do any blanching. The sweet potato chips didn’t seem quite as crispy as I would like but maybe Ineeded to keep them in longer.

Comments

  • BluedolfinBluedolfin Raw Newbie

    LimeLady~ No, you don’t have to blanch stuff before dehydrating. Remember, most appliance manuals are written for the “general public” who eat standard diets and not for people like raw foodist who have specific guidelines. The blanching probably speeds up a more “cooked” processing and sets the color of veggie. When you look up how to dehydrate something in the instruction book, the instructions will tell you certain temps which may be higher than 110 degrees, the commonly accepted max temp for raw stuff. You will need to adjust the temp and estimate a longer time for dehydrating then what the instructions state. After a bit, you will become an “expert” at “raw” dehydrating. If you have any questions along the way, there are plenty of dehydrating mavens on the site.

    Happy playing.

  • Thanks Bluedolfin. I’m really looking forward to playing with it.

  • BluedolfinBluedolfin Raw Newbie

    My privilege. Hope you post how it goes… the good, bad, and the “interesting”. :)

  • One of my cats just went nuts over the sweet potato chips I made. She got up on the kitchen counter when I was transferring them to another container. Yes, she is a spoiled cat with very bad manners. She was trying to eat them right out of my hand before I could get them put away. So I gave her a few and she loved them.

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    do you mind telling me how you made the sweet potato chips? i wanted to make some for my dogs. they love them.

    actually my cat might too…he loves avocado.

  • RawKidChefRawKidChef Raw Newbie

    hehe my cat loves avocado too!

  • have_merseyhave_mersey Raw Newbie

    oh my cats LOVE sweet potatoes. One has very good manners otherwise, but if you leave the room he will jump up and eat your sweet potatoe. Don’t leave those unguarded with cats in your house!

  • Jessica the hippo loves sweet potatoes too!

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