What is the Nutritional Value of Dehydrated Food?
Fresh produce, which can be dehydrated immediately, is our best source of natural vitamins, sugars, and minerals. Once it is harvested, some of this nutritional value is lost. If fresh food is left to sit on a counter in a store or at home, the vitamin content deteriorates even further. By drying food rather than holding it fresh, most losses can be checked. With dehydrating, you preserve more nutrients than with methods of preservation that involve cooking food. The higher the temperature is during processing, the more nutrients are lost. Although dehydration depends on heat, it requires it at much lower temperatures than cooking does–usually not over 145°F. The effect of water removal on nutritional changes of dehydrated food is minimal except that some vitamin A and vitamin C are lost during dehydration. (This can be kept to a minimum with proper pretreatment.) Dehydrated food must also be properly handled, prepared, dried, packaged, and stored under appropriate conditions and used
