Food for thought

November 4, 2009 | Print

DIY Dried Fruit and Baby Teethers

We’ve been fascinated with food dehydrators since tasting a friend’s just dried crunchy pecans. Delicious–and we never thought we liked pecans that much in the first place! Plus raw food experts explain that roasting and baking can remove nutrients from fruits, nuts and vegetables, whereas drying them maintains their natural good stuff.

The beauty of the food dehydrator is its simplicity–a rectangular box with sliding trays that provides favorite snacks and science experiments. The kids set nuts, fruit, even vegetables on the trays, slide them into the dehydrator, then after they’re dried, taste test and study the results. Weelicious creates yummy fruit and vegetable baby teethers with a food dehydrator.

We like the Excalibur dehydrators because they’re easy to use and clean, and Excalibur’s awareness of BPA issues. Most food dehydrators use polycarbonate plastic, which has BPA, because polycarbonate works well for heating. In the Excalibur, food sits on BPA-free polypropylene screens so food never touches the polycarbonate frame.

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