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Dehydration of foods is one of the oldest methods we know of preserving foods. While back in the "good old days" people had to dry their food by using the heat of the sun. You need several really hot days in a row, preferably over 100 F with fairly low humidity for it to work. Thankfully though, once electricity was invented our dependence on solar power was lessened and we began to be able to dry foods no matter what the weather, or where we lived. We now have commercial dryers that do the work for us.

These dryers range in size from fairly small, to huge capacity depending on what we'd like to buy. Dehydrated foods should be stored in airtight containers, out of direct light and kept as cool as possible. They can last up to a year, if stored correctly. Just make sure that no moisture gets into the container.

There are now several ways to dehydrate food. The most obvious is the oldest manner: Solar drying is as effective today as it was yesterday. If you live in an appropriate climate you don't need any special equipment to get the job done. Although it does take a couple of very hot days and low humidity to work properly. Simply place the food out in the sun on a rack, or wood, or rock and let the sun do its job. (Make sure to keep the bugs and rodents away, though!) While this is a very inexpensive way to dry food, it is only good where the weather permits. Humidity and temperature play a large part in whether this is a method that will work for you.

Other methods include drying food beside a wood stove, or using the kitchen stove. Either way, these methods are not very effective. Drying food by the wood stove is effective only if you closely regulate the temperature, which is almost impossible to accomplish. So it's easy to ruin the food by either over drying it or under drying it. Also, no one wants to use a wood stove on a hot day so once again you're limited to the type of day, or season, that you'd use this method.

The kitchen stove on the other hand keeps a fairly regulated temperature in the oven, although you do need to leave the door propped open while you use it. So while this is an effective way to dry foods according to the temperature, it isn't very efficient when it comes to time or to cost. Ovens only dry a few pounds at a time, and every half hour the racks need to be rotated and the food turned over. When you factor in the cost of running your oven for 6-12 hours, you'll find you're really not saving as much money by dehydrating your food as you thought.

The best way to dehydrate the extra produce and meats that we want to store is by using a commercial food dehydrator. They come in all shapes and sizes, and give you a range of choices for you to choose from. Some come with stackable racks that make up the dryer its self, or they come in a box-like shape with removable shelves. The heating element is usually found on the bottom or in the back, depending on the model you pick.

Some food dehydrators have fans that help circulate the air around the food, which cuts down on the number of times trays have to be rotated because it distributes the hot air more evenly. Other dehydrators don't use fans at all; rather they rely on convection heating to do the trick.

Whether or not you choose to have a fan in your model is up to you. Some people feel that the fans blow too much dirt into the dehydrator, while others feel like if you keep the area around the fan clean, then it shouldn't matter. So it really comes down to a personal choice, and is something that should be considered before buying a food dehydrator.

Benefits to using food dehydrators are that it is a fairly economical way to make use of the seasonal fruits and meats that come our way. Because it removes quite a bit of the water from the food, similar to the freeze-drying process, it makes the food light and quite compact. It is also a very affordable way to preserve fruits and meats that otherwise might have gone to waste.

Some cons to dehydrating food are that it does require the use of a food dehydrator which can be a fairly expensive purchase. While some people still use the sun to dry their food, you really need at least 4 sunny days in a row where the temperature is over 100 F. So for those of us that don't live in such high heats, the food dryer becomes essential.

No matter what method you choose to use to store your food, make sure you really weigh all the pro's and con's. Keep in mind, that variety is nice and whenever possible try to rely on more than just one method of food storage.

Learn more by visiting our home food storage articles page or go directly to the following related articles: Dehydrating Fruits, Dehydrating Vegetables, or Dehydrating Meats.