The raw food diet is a great option for those looking to lose weight and improve their health. While it may seem like just another crazy diet fad among juice cleanses, veganism and others, the raw food diet is much more than that. It is a simple, comprehensive diet that cuts out all harmful processed food and can help you lose weight, be healthier, and feel better! If you want to try the raw food diet but aren’t sure where to start, this article can help you familiarize yourself with the diet as well as teach you about dehydrators for raw food and help you choose the best dehydrator for raw food for you through several raw food dehydrator reviews .

What is the Raw Food Diet? Put simply, the raw food diet is a diet that consists only of natural (or raw) foods that have not gone through extensive processing like the majority of the modern food you can find in any grocery store. Adherents to the raw food diet have some choices. Many choose to go vegetarian and not eat meat, while others choose to cut out all animal products entirely, including eggs and dairy, but still others choose to consume meat and animal products as long as they have not been processed. Regardless of whether or not meat is a part of the equation, large components of the raw food diet include:

nuts

fruits

vegetables

whole grains

sprouts

beans

Why the Need for a Dehydrator? Because the raw food diet does not include any processed foods, the food you can eat goes bad very quickly without the unnatural preservatives and other chemicals that are packed into processed food. It can be extremely wasteful to throw out all the food that has gone bad before you've eaten it, and it can be a disruptive hassle to have to drag yourself to the grocery store several times a week to replenish your fresh, natural food supply. A raw food dehydrator can be a lifesaver for those on the raw food diet. A dehydrator removes the water from fresh foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and other foods while still retaining its nutrients and flavor. Dehydrated raw foods can remain perfectly preserved for up to several months, allowing you to have fresh, preserved food on hand even if you haven't made a trip to the store in weeks. Before you invest in a food dehydrator , it's important to have some knowledge on how to properly go about raw food dehydration, starting with the right raw food dehydrator temperature. When dehydrating raw foods, the food should not be heated to a temperature higher than one hundred eighteen degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature is important because, at temperatures over one hundred eighteen degrees, raw foods begin to lose some of their sensitive enzymes and nutrients from the high heat, which can affect their flavor and health benefits.

Dehydrators can help expand the range of foods you can eat while on the raw food diet using a variety of simple dehydrator raw recipes . You can mix together certain dehydrated raw foods to create delicious, easy-to-make raw food dehydrator recipes that taste great without cheating on your diet. These raw dehydrator recipes include moist spongy bread, crisp crackers, yummy raw ﻿﻿veggie burgers ﻿. sweet and soft apple or zucchini bread, and more. Some other options can even include some amazing raw cookies dehydrator recipes and help you create delicious desserts using only natural ingredients. Chekc out the following video to see how easy it is to make some delicious raw kale chips in the Tribest Sedona food dehydrator.

What Makes a Good Dehydrator for Preparing Raw Foods? Before you start shopping and investing your money into a random dehydrator for raw food, it’s important to learn about what makes a top-notch raw food diet dehydrator machine. There are many things to look for in a dehydrator before buying it. Size The first and most important thing to consider when searching for a dehydrator is its size. It’s best to get the biggest dehydrator you can for your budget and available space in order to fit more food into the dehydrator at one time to save time and effort. The best-sized dehydrators have nine to ten trays, while smaller and less efficient models have only four to five trays. Timer Another thing to consider is the dehydrator’s timer. The best dehydrators have built-in automatic digital timers with up to one hundred hours to programmable timing in order to help you keep track of your food’s dehydration process along the way. Power / Airflow In terms of power, dehydrators can be solar or electric. However, electric models are much more efficient for dehydrating raw foods due to easier temperature control. Electric raw food dehydrators come in horizontal or vertical models. Horizontal airflow dehydrators are much more efficient for raw food dehydration because they decrease the risk of mold development and help preserve nutrients and enzymes in food during dehydration. All of these factors are important to consider before answering the fundamental question, “What is the best dehydrator for raw food?” Raw Food Dehydrator Reviews and Our Picks In an effort to narrow down your search and facilitate your selection process when it comes to getting the right dehydrator to create your delicious raw meals, we've done a little digging. Through our research and consulting with many raw foodists, raw chefs and many others in the raw food "uncooking" industry, we discovered that the following dehydrators came highly recommended: Excalibur 3926TB Food Dehydrator

The Excalibur 3926 Food Dehydrator is arguably the best dehydrator for raw food preparation. This dehydrator for raw food features nine trays with fifteen square feet of drying space, making it an excellent size for dehydrating large amounts of dry food. It also features a flexible poly-screen tray insert that prevents foods from sticking to the trays during the dehydration process. The Excalibur’s thermostat is adjustable and it is equipped with an automatic twenty-six hour timer. Tribest Sedona SD-P9000

The Tribest Sedona SD-P9000 is also at the top of the list when it comes to raw food dehydrator recommendations. From what we discovered, it was created with the raw food enthusiast in mind. This dehydrator’s best feature is that it its trays are one hundred percent BPA-free. The BPA-free plastic prevents the trays of the dehydrator from releasing harmful gases while under high heat. Plus, the Tribest Sedona is very quiet while dehydrating and is equipped with a convenient digital timer and digital temperature control capabilities. TSM Food Dehydrator

The TSM Food Dehydrator with 10 Stainless Steel trays is one of the best dehydrators for raw food preparation. It is crafted from food grade stainless steel that is not susceptible to rust formation. It is a horizontal air flow model which makes it an especially great choice as a dehydrator for raw food preparation by creating faster drying times and preventing the formation of mold during the dehydration process. Plus, the TSM dehydrator has a special rack design that makes it easy to clean both inside and out.