Like my melon colored kitchen in the photo above? I LOVE it!

I also love dehydrated foods. Drying foods is a great way to preserve local and seasonal foods and make it available for the remainder of the year. In fact I much prefer dehydration to canning because not only are you preserving the food, you are leaving it structurally and nutritionally in tact. When you cook a food you are changing the composition of it AND you are destroying as much as 50-80% of the nutritional value it once held. If you want hard data on exactly why raw and unprocessed is MUCH healthier than cooked read, The Live Food Factor. This book documents nearly 70 scientific studies done on the raw versus cooked debate. Most of them are listed alphabetically in an appendix so you can browse the scientific proof in the raw pudding one tantalizing detail at a time. Most raw food books are short on the science but not this one!

Canning food may preserve it but the food loses something in the translation. Dehydration preserves the food AND the nutritional content with one caveat… it must be dried at low temperatures. Most of the dehydrators you see in stores do not have temperature controls or air flow so I knew I would need one that did. I also selected a brand that many raw foodists have used and endorsed. I chose a 5 tray Excalibur dehydrator to use in my home. For larger families and dehydration requirements there is a nine tray model too.

This is the only dehydrator I have used so I cannot make comparisons but this smaller Nesco one is cheaper and it does have air flow and temperature controls… so if you are on a strict budget you may want to look into it.

Primarily we use our dehydrator to make dried fruit and veggie snacks, fruit leathers, dried nuts, nut flours, raw cookies, and more. Now that apple season is upon us it is time to get busy making bunches of dried apple slices… just as it was for peaches a few weeks back. Local food goes further to nourish your family with a dehydrator. Healthy snacks and lunches are MUCH easier to pack when you have dehydrated goodies on hand. Camping and hiking trips are easier to plan to.

I like the fact that the temperature controls allow me to get the food super crispy if I want or slightly moist if I want… aka crispy banana chips but slightly moist apricot slices.

Even if you don’t eat raw, a dehydrator can still be wonderfully useful. I recently read Backpack Gourmet by Linda Frederick Yaffe and it has tons of great recipes for dehydrated foods. It also has some clever complete meal ideas. They are light weight, fast, full meals that will keep your energy up. Instead of packing in heavy foods that you have to prepare at camp you can make the meal at home and then dehydrate. Then when you are on your trip all you have to do is add water and voila!

It has recipes for casseroles, pastas, soups, chilis, stews, chowders, cereals, and much more. Imagine making a tasty bean and vegetable stew at home and then just spreading it out on your dehydrator sheet to dry overnight. The reduced water content makes it light weight and it retains the flavor and nutrition it had at home. Because it is pre-cooked you are only heating. This book is genius… lasagna while camping? Very cool. The recipes would be great for taking on vacation too. If you have a teeny hotel kitchen you can make a delicious meal in minutes and a small box of dehydrated dishes could easily equal a week or more of quality meals.

You can also use this nifty machine to dry leaves, fruit, herbs, and spices for homemade potpourri. Maybe now is the time to make some homemade holiday potpourri?

Do you have a dehydrator? Do you use it?

TGIF! Have an awesome weekend everyone!

I am headed up north yet again for a mini vacation. My husband is staying behind to paint the interior of our house and it will be easier without kidlets on the loose. I chose a luscious cream color for most walls with a lovely melon color in the kitchen… I think they called it nectar but it reminds me of cantaloupe. Perhaps my hubby can get the landlord out as well since our sink has the annoying habit of giving us a teeny electric shock whenever you touch it… that can’t be good!

We also have a Halloween party to go to up there so we wouldn’t want to miss that AND my mom and I have been watching the DVD sets of Supernatural from the beginning… I got her hooked and we have to keep watching. I knew it would be her thing… she is a multi published paranormal author.

This week I have been in Thrift Store heaven!!! When the cold weather hit I realized that we were ill prepared. And where did Fall go anyway? It went from 90 to 50 overnight here! Anyway, I got all the kids lots of wool sweaters… there was an awesome selection of wool. I even found a super heavy duty, 100% wool coat in fire engine red, for my daughter for $2.99. She will be so toasty this winter!

I also got snow pants and jeans for all the kids, a couple more coats, long underwear for the boys, scarves, 3 beautiful ponchos, and a bunch of sheets and towels for sewing projects. Oh and books, got quite a few of those. I am enamoured with the thrift stores in this city. Most prices are around $1.99 for almost any item of clothing, except coats. My husband thinks I am insane because I have gone every day this week but he can’t argue when he sees my savings. I needed a new casserole dish for my famous veggie casseroles and I found one for $1.

Well, better sign off and clean house a little so I am not leaving hubby to deal with a mess while I am off having fun.

YOU have a great Fall weekend…

Did you miss the drama on Twitter? I did. I don’t hang out on Twitter much anymore and I don’t read most of the popular mommy blogs because I have nothing in common with the moms who write them. I may start out reading and then get bored by all the sponsored posts and reviews of processed food. Sadly more and more of these blogs might as well hang a “For Sale” sign on the front page because clearly they are being compiled in PR lists for moms who will sell a favorable opinion to the highest bidder. I say this only because I see so many of the same names on these different campaigns. 

Remember the firestorm that erupted when a group of mom bloggers chose to promote a popular brand of bubble bath? They were promoting a children’s product that has cancer causing chemicals in it. I am not sure what they got in exchange but I hardly think it could be worth it. I wrote about the issue here… Toxic Bubble Bath.

I have done many reviews of companies and products on this blog and often times I get free product but what many people don’t know is that I get around 50-100 emails each day that ask me to review or endorse a company or product of some sort. Some try to lure me with a cash payment or a free trip to “dialogue” about their product. 99% of the time I ignore or flat out refuse their offers. When the only thing I want to tell them in a dialogue is “You Suck!”, somehow I think I would be wasting my time. Sometimes I accept the opportunity to review a product but I make no guarantees it will be favorable and I usually flat out refuse money in compensation. Why? Because my opinion is not for sale and my name is not for them to associate with their company unless I 100% approve of their company and their product. I sure would LOVE to have a free trip to California but I would hate to lend a helping hand to an unethical company and disappoint all the people who read this blog.

Nestle asked a large group of mom bloggers to fly out to California this week for a sponsored event. The moms got a free trip and a free hotel stay.  What they did not antcipate is that MANY moms would be really dissapointed by this. Nestle is a lot more than cookies and coaoa. They also control 40% of the worldwide market for baby formula and some of the attendees are breastfeeding advocates. They also have NUMEROUS unethical marketing tactics and their pushing formula on women in underdeveloped countries is actually resulting in babies dying. Women there believe the hype that formula is better for their babies and they mix it with dirty water, resulting in sick children. They may also not have enough money to keep a steady supply so they use less than the recommended amount of formula and water it down to make it go further… resulting in malnourished children. These women are being spurred to formula feed when clearly breastfeeding is better… but Nestle doesn’t make any money when women choose to breastfeed. The anger against Nestle in regards to this has been boiling since the 1970s with boycotts. It is still goes on today. There is also the issue of slave labor in reference to their other products.

I am not perfect. I don’t expect anyone else to be perfect but.. I don’t know… dying children and slave labor… those don’t seem like oopsie offenses that can be taken lightly by anyone being asked to lend a hand to their marketing campaign.

I hope mom bloggers start to see that we have a responsibilty to the people who read what we have to say. Why would we ever choose to influence them to buy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Frito Lay, TV Dinners, J& J Bubble Bath, or Nestle no bake cookies and baby formula? What value does that bring to them? NONE. If it has no value to your readers, don’t do it. And in these cases… if it can harm your readers or promote a company that in turn does harm… especially don’t do it.

For more on this issue check out Annie’s Open letter to the attendees of the Nestle Family blogger event and Amy’s post: Did we learn anything from the Nestle Family Twitter-storm?