Dehydrators

• Water is such an important element of living foods and the human body, and, if you are what you eat, would you want to look like anything that comes out of a dehydrator?

• You might think I'm trying to put you off buying one. I'm not really, I just want you to keep in mind that living foods should be the greater part of your raw food diet. Dehydrators are found extensively in raw food kitchens so it's good to remember the importance of water.

• The idea of the dehydrator is that you can dry foods at the temperature of the desert sunshine and not loose too much of the enzymes and nutritional benefits. Think of sun dried tomatoes, or apricots. It's that kind of temperature.

• Dehydrators generally allow for a more varied raw food diet, and allow crackers, cookies and other "baked" goods to be made to provide bulk, crunch and interest in the diet.

• You can have warm dehydrated food on a cold day, for example the raw curry recipe.

• Dehydrators can be used to dry fruits, vegetables and herbs. These can be kept for a long time.

• Dehydrating intensifies the flavours, think of sun dried tomatoes again - you can do this with all kinds of other fruits. These can then be added to other recipes to make them tastier too.

• You can completely dry things like beetroot slices. You end up with a red powder. This can be kept in a small jar and used to add colour to other recipes. ... then there was the horseradish root ...

• Many recipes are about  using the dehydrator to remove some of the moisture but not until it's bone dry. Most things taste better with some moisture content.

• Generally, crackers and foods that you want to use over the week will be drier.

Features to look out for when choosing a dehydrator.

• Some machines run at a fixed temperature which may be far to high for raw food, so do check this before you buy.

• You need a temperature control that can keep the temperature at or below 46C (115F)

• For dehydrating softer food mixes you need non stick sheets to cover the dehydrator trays. On the Excalibur these are called "Texflex" sheets. Check if these come as standard or if you have to purchase them separately.

• For some recipes, for example when dehydrating vegetables to make curries, or for dehydrating buckwheat, a timer is very useful.

• Decide where you are going to put your dehydrator. The fan may seem a bit noisy at first so put it somewhere where you won't be annoyed.

• I use the Excalibur dehydrator - it just happens to be the one I bought - and I'm quite pleased with it - it does the job. It has quite a lot of shelf space and is easy to clean and manage. I tend to batch up my dehydrating so that I fill the machine as much as possible. I don't have any experience of the other types, but I expect they all work.

Excalibur 4926T dehydrator

Excalibur 4926T controls