Organic & Whole Living: Excalibur Dehydrator Review

Dehydrated foods, what's the point? Well, I'll tell you what's the point. We love dried apple rings in this family. To us, they're like candy. A nourishing, yummy, chewy, satisfying candy! Anything to exchange the processed sugar variety makes this momma happy.

I've been on a health mission for over three years now. Not just the loose weight, mission but the healthy gut mission for everyone in my family. We've really been digging down into the nitty-gritty of what we eat and why we eat it. I'm realizing that the majority of the things we used to eat, were only things that satisfied hunger and not provide the nourishment that our bodies needed (1).

I was completely thrilled when Excalibur agreed to send me a dehydrator for review. I've been having so much delicious fun with it and so has my family.

First up, we made the most yummy snacks! Dehydrated Bananas.

I'm not talking about the hard crunchy often "deep fried" banana chips you get at the health food store. I'm talking about banana chips and chewies. Oh my, they are so, so good. My boys call them little slices of banana pudding. Doesn't that sound good. Banana pudding without the heavy cream, pudding and nilla wafers.

Banana Chips and Chewies are so easy to make, especially with the Excalibur Dehydrator. For crunchier banana chips you're going to want to slice them fairy thin, but not so thin you can see through them. For a more chewier texture you're going to want to slice them a bit thicker.

Simply line them on the dehydrator tray, and turn on the temperature to 125 degrees. The Excalibur has an easy dial system with temperatures marked making it easy to set.  I've read a lot of conflicting advice about what temp to dehydrate foods so that they don't loose their enzymes and I'm comfortable with starting out at 125 degrees for two hours and reducing that to 115 degrees for four hours, although times will vary based on humidity and temperature in your area and home. Another great feature of the Excalibur Dehydrator is the timer. You can set for as long as 26 hours.

Really though, it all depends on the texture you are trying to achieve with your bananas. We could hardly keep our fingers out of these and ate some in between, they were still a little moist but really yummy.

The bottom right picture shows our batch (that didn't get eaten) of dried banana chips that were sliced a little thicker. Do you see how the edges curled a bit? That shows the chewier texture. If they were thinner and dried they would be more flat.We aren't worried about color in this family, brown fruit doesn't bother us, it is only natural, so I didn't feel a need to douse them in lemon juice.

Needless to say clean up was a breeze, I hand washed the Excalibur Dehydrator trays in warm soapy water and that was it. I have four bunches of bananas waiting to be dried this weekend so we'll have some yummy snacks for on the go.

I have a lot to say about the Excalibur Dehydrator and all of the yummy healthy treats you can create with it. I'll be back with more recipes and an interview with Excalibur's CEO Shauna Verkade.

 

(1) Seven Tips to Enhance Digestion

 

Truth in Review: Excalibur. did provide me with a dehydrator free of charge including shipping. I was not paid for the review or require any certain context within my review. All reviews posted by me are truthful in content and not bought. Gabreial Wyatt, Editor Visit our Disclaimer/Disclosure  for more info.

Comments

[eunice pitman]

You are so very lucky !! I would love this dehydrator ! The other cheapy one's just do not do the job as this one does !!!

[Vintage Indie]

It's not luck, just blessed!

Do you have any good recipes to share?