Dehydrated vs Fresh

[Anna]

My brother and I live on a budget, as most people do. However, we have resolved that we don't want to have the medical problems our mother does, so we need to change our eating habits.

Unfortunately most of our eating habits are dictated by the budget, and not so much a dislike of eating healthy. Eating healthy, as I'm sur most of you know, is a great deal more expensive than eating inexpensively. Fresh fruits and veggies are not cheap.

For Christmas, The Boy was gifted with a food dehydrator. He's very happy about this; he's wanted one for years. So tonight, when we were discussing groceries, health, and budget, he mentioned, "We'll have to buy in bulk."

My response, of course, was, "What we NEED we can't buy in bulk. It'll go bad."

At which point he informed me that dehydrated fruits and vegetables are just as healthy as fresh fruits and vegetables.

So I bring the case to all my intelligent friends at StarRise. What do y'all know about the nutritional values of dehydrated food vs. fresh?

And also - anyone have healthy, tasty, recipes or meal plans that won't cost us a fortune, or a huge lot of time to make?

[geo]

Uh. I'm in foods, but my memory is that of a typical high school teen. I'd have to look when semester starts, but I want to say that dehydrated food loses some of the nutrients. I could be wrong, but a vague memory has surfaced in the back of my head.

As for a tast recipe, pasta is always good and cheap. If you have a bit of money to burn you can make that something really good by adding Shrimp. The recipe is called "Shrimp Scampi" and it takes under a half hour to make if your organized.

[snowkat]

Hi Anna, I don't know about the nutrition in dehydrated foods. I would be interested to know the answer too when you find out. But I do know that frozen veggies are usually flash frozen within 8-12 hours of being picked. They basically are fresher and full of more nutrition than the "fresh" vegetables in the grocery store, and usually are cheaper.

For instance, the amount of spinach in a box of frozen spinach would probably equal a couple pounds of fresh spinach. The fresh would cost three or more dollars to get the equivalent. The frozen is less than two dollars usually. Just thaw it out, drain it, and use it in recipes the same way you would the fresh- except salad.

Eggs are also pretty good for nutrition and cost. They are a nice packet of protein, and they are pretty cheap.

Fruits are more affordable if you go with whatever is in season. Most fruits are available year round, but they have a certain season where they will be on sale or cheaper just because of their abundance.

I like to use home made soups to stretch our budget. You can take just a very small amount of meat (by American standards) and manage to feed the whole family with it. I usually buy a small roast when it is on sale. I cook it in the crock pot with a LOT of water, with the thought in mind that all that water is going to get flavor and become broth the next day. We eat the roast with veggies that I roast off in the oven one night, and then any left over roast is cubed up and put back into the pot. I let the broth sit over night in the fridge, and all the fat will rise to the top and congeal. I just spoon it off in the morning. Leaving me with a lot of fat free beef broth to flavor soups.

I add whatever frozen veggies I have, some beans (always cheap and they are full of fiber), rice, or whatever I got on hand. I use a lot of seasonings like soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, garlic, paprika, etc. (I buy my seasonings when they are on sale, they last a long time.) Let it simmer some, and there is enough soup for us for several days, or one night and the rest goes in the freezer for a while. If you freeze the soup in individual containers you have quick meals to heat whenever you want.

If you don't want to use the broth right away for soup, you can put the broth in ice cube trays until they freeze, then put the cubes into a bag and keep in the freezer until wanted. I use the broth cubes in other recipes too to add flavor when something calls for water. Like when I make rice, I don't just boil it in water, I throw in some chicken broth cubes and add flavor.

You can buy a really cheap packet of chicken thighs or breasts on sale. Just take off the skin and put the meat in the crock pot (I leave bones in for more flavor) with a lot of water and seasonings. Cook it for three hours on high or five on low. The meat will be fall apart done. Then shred it up.

I usually cook a couple pieces of the chicken for soup the next day and a couple pieces to use in a recipe. You can use the shredded chicken to make a casserole with eggs and veggies, and some whole wheat pasta, or add seasonings and make chicken enchiladas, or tacos. Add lots of beans and rice, and you can make it a very filling meal using very little meat. Use brown rice instead of white rice and it becomes more nutritious.

I try to think about how people in other countries have managed to eat nutritiously even when they are poor. Beans, rice, small amounts of meat, are my fillers. Frozen veggies, whole wheat pasta (which is pretty cheap now days), and sometimes eggs, are great to build around too. Broths and home made sauces help me stretch things while adding flavor.

Those are my suggestions. Hope it helps,
Kat

[snowkat]

Oh, if you want to email me for more specific ideas/recipes directly, feel free, [e-mail]

[Hope]

i second the crock pot idea. I put dried beans on low with broth and spices and carrots overnight, then add other veggies in the AM, and come home to food. Alternatively, I put veggies and potatoes on overnight (low again) in beef broth, then put an inexpensive roast on top in the AM and cook it all day, and it feeds a family of 5 for 2-3 meals.

The food dehydrator should be great for snacks, and to keep produce from going to waste. I bet you could find some great snack recipes on the internet, and dried veggies will work well for soups.

[Anna]

I, personally, love soups and stews. The Boy, however, doesn't. He also have a abhorrence of cooked carrots. Loves them raw, hates them cooked. He also dislikes onions, both cooked and raw. This makes crock pot preparations a bit of a challenge.

I always either buy frozen veggies, unless fresh are absolutely required - like with spinach. I can't stand cooked spinach, but I love fresh spinach for salads.

Scott has already broken in the dehydrator with pineapple and mandarin oranges. The pineapple was good. The mandarin oranges...looked like bits of confetti someone had sprinkled on the tray. Not worth the money or time to dehydrate.

Okay, back to researching inexpensive meals fit for diabetics. We aren't - yet - but as things stand, it's just a matter of time.

[Chantal]

All I can really tell you about dehydrated fruits and vegetables is that I can't stand them. Every once in a while, I'll try the samples at HEB, but I just don't care for them.

What I've seen people do with food dehydrators is make meat jerky with them.

Snowkat is right about the flash-frozen vegetables; I've heard that on the Food Network, too.

There is a TV show on the Food Network that shows how to make meals for under $10. If you don't have cable, you should at least be able to find its recipes via the Web.

The main food advice I have is to not buy anything organic. It's not demonstrably that much better than non-organic food, and organic is much, much more expensive.

If there is a Whole Foods Market near you, they do sell some items, such as beans and some grains, cheaper in bulk quantities. That is, you go to a barrel, scoop out however much you want, and pay for it by the pound.

One way to economize on beverages--Buy a re-usable water bottle, and fill it with the contents of those 'On the Go' packets. Much cheaper than buying bottles of flavored water.

[ginnystar]

If you like to bake add youget, here a store idea for storage Snapware it worth the extra money. www.snapware.com We use them for flour, cat food dry, sugar, and other things, I can't see to read at the moment but I do know of things that can help too.