Real World Gardener Dehydrating Tomatoes and Other Fruit in The Good Earth

Preserving Tomatoes and Other Food Part 2 <p style="font-weight:400;">Last week on the good earth segment, we talked about which tomatoes are best for passata, and preserving.</p>   Margaret's cut tomatoes for grilling. photo M Mossakoska <p style="font-weight:400;">It's time to delve into the world of dehydrating not just your tomatoes, but apples and other abundant fruits in your garden.</p> <p style="font-weight:400;">Why Dehydrate?</p> <p>But what about dried tomatoes?</p> <p style="font-weight:400;">Can you do that without buying one of those fancy air dryers?</p> <ul><li>Dehydrating food preserves most of the nutrients-only losing 3-5% of the nutrients and reduces the volume of your fruit. Dehydrating temperatures can be as low as 30 degrees.</li> <li>Canning loses 60 - 80% of nutrients.</li> <li>Grilling or making passata, also loses nutrients but not as much as in canning.</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight:400;">Sunlight is not the answer for dehydrating, because UV light affects the nutrients of food.,</p> <p style="font-weight:400;"> </p> <p style="font-weight:400;">The simplest method is to place the fruit on flyscreens or similar and place under shade, or as Margaret does, under a metal roof, perhaps a back porch.</p>   Dehydrated apples. photo M. Mossakowska <ul><li>The next choice is to use a commercial dehydrator.</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight:400;">Choice magazine has reviewed dehydrators.</p> <p>The overall score is made up of: drying performance (60%) and ease of use (40%). You can see the whole article on the Choice Magazine website (you either pay subscription or pay just to view the article): <a href='https://www.choice.com.au/home-and-living/kitchen/benchtop-cooking/review-and-compare/food-dehydrators?fbclid=IwAR2KMjsmGVglXkOrbd_0dMdVfm8xD7NgYJRO4t_AoiHl6XCSxrWM8bGUBkE'>https://www.choice.com.au/home-and-living/kitchen/benchtop-cooking/review-and-compare/food-dehydrators</a> or get a copy at a local library for free.</p> <p>The listed prices are higher than in