Episode: 2960
Title: HPR2960: Dehydrated Foods
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2960/hpr2960.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:55:19

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This is HPR Episode 2960 for Friday the 6th of December 2019. Today's show is entitled
dehydration foods and is part of the series Health and Health Care. It's hosted by Ahuka
and is about 40 minutes long and carries a clean flag. The summary is dehydrating your own
fruits and vegetables for healthy snacks. This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Hello this is Ahuka welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting
episode and this is going to be an additional one in my health series health and health care
and it's time to talk about dehydrated foods which is something I've been getting into. Now as I
have previously explained I am diabetic which is a condition that can cause a lot of medical problems
but on close examination it appears that those problems are almost entirely due to having
excessively high blood sugars. That is the problem of the diabetic but it is something you can
manage if you make up your mind to do so. I have made such a decision and it's working out well
so what is high anyway? Now my doctor focuses on the A1c test and if I go to the Mayo clinic it says
the A1c test is a common blood test used to diagnose type 1 and type 2 diabetes and to monitor how
well you're managing your diabetes. The A1c test goes by many other names including glycated hemoglobin
glycosylated hemoglobin hemoglobin A1c and HB A1c. The A1c test reflects your average blood sugar
level for the past two or three months. Specifically the A1c test measures what percentage of your
hemoglobin a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen is coated with sugar in other words
glycated. The higher your A1c level the poorer your blood sugar control and the higher your risk
of diabetes complications and I have a link to this Mayo Clinic website in the show notes if you
want to take a look at more detail at some of this so they go on to say you know some idea of
what considered high you know what's a high A1c. Now here's how the scale works for someone who
doesn't have diabetes a normal A1c level is below 5.7 percent. If your A1c level is between 5.7
and 6.4 percent you have pre-diabetes also called impaired fasting glucose which means you have
a high risk of developing diabetes in the future. An A1c level of 6.5 percent or higher on two
separate occasions shows that you have diabetes and A1c level above 8 percent means that your
diabetes is not well controlled and you have a higher risk of developing complications of diabetes.
Now again all of this comes from the Mayo Clinic site. In my case at my last blood test in
August 2019 my A1c was 5.3 and according to the chart from the Mayo Clinic that indicates I don't
have diabetes but I know I do and in fact I take two oral medications every day exercise
most mornings and I'm very careful about what I eat and it's the last of these that is most
important for controlling diabetes. No amount of medications or exercise will magically protect you
from bad eating and the rule I follow is a lot like what Michael Pollan advocates. This is a fairly
famous quote. Pollan says everything he's learned about food and health can be summed up in seven
words. Eat food not too much mostly plants and then he goes on to say what is that? Eat food means
eat real food vegetables fruits whole grains and yes fish and meat and avoid what Pollan calls
edible food like substances. Now in my case it means I also avoid foods that are high in
carbohydrates so no french fries or nachos no bread no rice no sugar but what do you do if you
want just a little notch in the afternoon but the bag of chips is off limits. I have found the
dehydrated foods work well for me. I can get kale chips which I find are delicious really
and they have no carbs to speak of. There's lots of dried vegetables at the supermarket and they're
better than eating twinkies however better is not always good in any absolute sense. When I took a
good look at the ingredients list I noticed they frequently had a lot of things I was not happy about
eating so I bought a dehydrator and started making my own. The one I bought on Amazon is called
the Nesco FD37A and it was inexpensive at about $40 US and I have a link in the show notes for this
and then I started experimenting with making some my own dehydrated foods and I learned a few things
along the way. The first is to do some preparation. You can get a lot of help just from Google if you
look. For example the outdoor site REI has a great how-to page link in the show notes. Alternatively you
can purchase a book. I did just that so I could get a little more in-depth information than a webpage
would provide. The one I got was the beginner's guide to dehydrating food second edition again
link in the show notes but there's plenty of other options this just happens to be the one that
caught my eye. Now the next question you need to answer is what you are dehydrating the food for?
Dehydrated food will keep quite long if prepared properly and stored properly.
In my case long-term storage was not the main point but it can be very handy if you're going
backpacking for instance since dehydrated food gives you a lot of nutrition with very little weight
since most of the weight in the food is water. For that you might want sealed plastic bags.
And that if you think about it is why an outdoor site like REI would have all that information
since backpackers and other outdoors types are a big part of their audience.
And foods with a high fat content are not suitable since they can go rancid with long-term storage.
For me though I am eating them regularly as part of my meals and snacks so I just drive them and
put them in covered plastic containers. The important thing is to get out virtually all of the water.
If you put a batch in a container that is sealed check it again some hours later and make
sure you don't see any condensation. If you do see that it isn't done and you should put it back
in the dehydrator for a longer time. For most of the things I do I drive them for 18 to 24 hours
and if you ever see any mold check out the whole batch no sense in taking chances though I have
to say that has not yet happened to me. In addition to the dehydrator I have a good chef's knife
and a couple of spray bottles one with lemon juice the other with olive oil.
Most fruit will darken pretty badly if you don't give it a spray with the lemon juice.
A quick spritz on both sides will keep it appetizing.
And for the vegetables a spray of olive oil will add a little bit of flavor and give you a chance
to add some spice that will stick to the vegetables.
Now I mentioned having a good knife. I tried using a mandolin. After getting emergency stitches
to my thumb I decided I'll just use a knife. It is for me safer at least.
Although I also picked up some gloves if I ever decide to use the mandolin again that should
protect me. When you first start you will probably be amazed at the shrinkage.
Most fruits and vegetables are very high in water and once you dry them out they have shriveled
to almost nothing. Which means you want to start with large pieces if possible particularly with
the vegetables which for me have the most shrinkage. Here are some of my favorites.
And I'm going to start now with the fruits bananas. Just peel the bananas, slice them in about
quarter inch or one half centimeter slices. If you slice them the usual way they will be like
large coins. Give them a quick skirt with the lemon juice. When dry they will sound like plastic
poker chips but be a very nice little snack. Apples. Core the apples but leave the peel on.
I cut mine in half to make it easier to cut out the core. Slice in about three eighth inch or
nearly one centimeter slices and spray on both sides with lemon juice. A dash of cinnamon would be
very nice as well. Oranges. You might not have thought of trying this but they're nice. Peel large
oranges so there's no white left on the rind. Then slice in about three eighths inch or nearly
one centimeter slices. You don't need the lemon juice here because this is already citrusy enough.
Cherries. Pit and cut in half give a little squirt of lemon juice.
Now onto some vegetables. First one I do is zucchini. Now that's my favorite. I eat a lot of these.
Cut the ends off of zucchini then slice on the bias. Now what that means is you're not doing it
straight across but at a steep angle. Not quite lengthwise but perhaps a little more than
just 45 degrees. The idea is you want to get very large pieces out of all of this. Cut in at
least a half inch or more than one centimeter thick. Spray with olive oil on both sides at a dash
of adobe seasoning. Yellow summer squash can be prepared the same way or for something a little
different. Try cucumber. Now these thick slices take a little longer to dry but because they're
thick there will actually be something left when they do. The first time you do this I promise you
you will be surprised at how much these things shrink. Carrots. Cut the ends off but don't peel.
Cut the carrots into 4 inch or 10 centimeter sections then slice lengthwise into quarter inch or
half centimeter slices. There are two different ways to handle them after this. One is to blanch in
boiling water. That means let them boil for a couple of minutes and then take them out.
Or alternatively you don't cook them at all and you just give them a little spray with some
lemon juice and then sprinkle some ranch seasoning. If you've boiled them they'll already be
wet enough for this. If you didn't boil them the little spritz of lemon juice will help the
seasoning to stick. Now you can buy ranch seasoning but it's easy enough to make. I put a link in
the show notes to a recipe to make ranch seasoning at home. Or you know try some other things if you
want. String beans okay. These shrink dramatically but just cut the ends off of the string beans.
Blanch them as I describe with the carrots. You know the roots boil them for a couple of minutes
and then I like to sprinkle mine after I've drained them with a balsamic vinegar.
It gives them a nice little bit of flavor when they're dried.
Another one that maybe you wouldn't have thought of butternut squash or acorn squash you could do
something similar any of the winter squashes. Peel remove the seeds and then slice into quarter
inch or half centimeter slices. Blanch in boiling water. Take them out and then sprinkle a little
ranch seasoning on them. Similar to the carrots but it's a different flavor so it's just another
variation on the theme. Now I like to make these and you know I just put them in a plastic container
and put them in the cupboard and then I can have them as snacks or have them as part of a meal.
You know sometimes I don't feel like really doing any cooking.
Well you know with some dried vegetables and some hummus I can have a very nice meal and
you know my health is excellent. So that's really the main reason for doing all of this.
So I'm sharing this with you and give it a try and I think you might end up finding that you like it.
So this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio signing off and is always saying support free software. Bye bye.
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