Dehydrated Food Pros And Cons.

Dehydrated food is an ideal backpacking and camping food because it's light, compact, and keeps well for extended periods of time without a cooler.

While most backpackers and some campers look at the weight of their camping gear and hiking equipment, how many look at how much their food weighs?

OK, I just heard all of you ultra-lightweight backpackers that chop the handles off your toothbrushes to save a few grams say, "I do!" ;-)

Depending on how well food is dehydrated, it can save a lot of weight making it ideal for backpacking and nice for camping and hiking. How much weight can it save? Depending on the level of dehydration and the food type, dehydrated food can drop weight by as much as 90%. Keep this in mind if you compare it to fresh food prices while shopping.

Since the best companies can now reduce moisture content to 3%, about 10 times better than previous methods at 30%, weights have decreased significantly and shelf-life has risen. Usually keeping moisture down below 15% will inhibit bacterial and mold growth. If the moisture content is higher be careful and watch for spoilage, especially if you have had it lying around for awhile.

I've seen this a few times with our homemade dehydrated food, although it usually takes a month or so to go bad. If you use your own dehydrator though, it's something to be aware of and it's always a good idea to check your food for spoilage before you eat it. Also, it's probably not realistic to think that you can dehydrate homemade food as thoroughly as a company that specializes in this area can, but that doesn't mean it's not worth the effort.

As with almost anything, dehydrated food makes a trade-off. In exchange for lighter weight, less volume and bulk, food will take a little longer to reach your plate. It's really not a big deal. If you're in a hurry, use a pressure cooker to speed up the process.

One of the nice things about dehydrated food is that you can use what you need for a meal and leave the rest for another time. You definitely can't do that with fresh or canned food because it spoils much more quickly. So in the long run you're saving food and money because of it. Something else worth mentioning...

Dehydrated food has a different flavor just like fresh foods, organic foods, cooked foods, and canned foods all have different flavors. It's not bad, just different, and it varies from food to food and with the amount of desiccation. Take an apricot for example, a dehydrated apricot has a more intense flavor than a fresh apricot, as do dried tomatoes. It's no big deal, just something to be aware of so that you can adjust the flavor with herbs, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, butter or whatever you prefer if you want to.

Home dehydrators are nice if you like to try new ideas that might be hard or impossible to find at the store. I've had everything from preservative-free fruit and jerky, to roll-ups. And the best thing is you get to choose the ingredients and the quality of those ingredients. If you want to avoid preservatives or even go organic, getting your own food dehydrator is a great investment that can quickly pay for itself. The better food dehydrators have adjustable temperature controls and stackable trays that allow you to process more food at a time.

Just keep in mind the easier the food breaks in half the less water it has in it. So a banana slice that snaps like a potato chip has less water than one that bends in half without breaking. As mentioned above, less water means your dehydrated food will keep longer.

Cons: Relaxed cooking times that can be reduced with a pressure cooker or slow cook it in a crock pot.

If you've found this information on dehydrated food helpful, you might want to have a look at camping meals.