Anyone get sick from eating dehydrated foods? My daughter, who is six, will get a fever and diaherra everytime we eat a lot of dehydrated foods. I thought I had the temp too low (105) so bacteria was forming but I put it higher (135 for an hour and then 115) but the food had the same effect on her.
I am really disapointed because I know we can not stay high raw if we don't have ocassional dehydrated foods. Is there something I am doing wrong? Has anyone gotten sick from dehydrated foods?

That migh indicate that she doesn't NEED dehydrated foods. I would stop giving them to her and just give her more of other things. One doesn't really need dehydrated foods to have a balanced raw diet.

Hi mtnkathy- I definitly agree. I am going to stop giving her dehydrated foods. It just makes raw so MUCH easier to have those though. It's so weird that she gets so sick from them and I just want to know if there's something I don't know about dehydrating and does this happen to anyone else or their kids?

It could be from the ingredients. Are you adding any flavorings besides just plain fresh produce? If you add something like miso or apple cider vinegar, there could be some allergic reaction going on.

Most dehydrators are good about not growing bacteria because there is constant moving air over the products.

Fresh produce is superior to dehydrated anyway, so throwing out the dehydrator is actually going to produce better health.

Most people who have been raw for a while end up not using their dehydrator because 1)it takes too long to prepare foods and 2) fresh tastes better and 3)fresh is healthier.

I made my first dehydrated food on the weekend. Onion bread. Not really bread more like seed cake. (onions, sunflower seeds, flax, namu shoyu and oil).

Tasty sort of but it made me sick too. I could feel it in my stomach for a long time. I thought it was because the sunflower seeds weren't the freshest and also because it is basically very high fat.

I find dehydrated food difficult to digest and therefore don't eat it.

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

One of the main benefits of living food is the living water it contains -- one of the reasons fresh juice is so valuable. Dehydrated food is the inverse of fresh juice.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2007 06:03PM by learningtofly.

It's easier to eat 10 prunes then 10 plums and we all know what happens with too many prunes! Sometimes dehydrated foods can give you too much of a good thing at once.

Was there a particular dehydrated food that your Daughter gets sick from?

Thanks for the replies. My question is why doesn't cooked foods have the same effect on her?

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Was there a particular dehydrated food that your Daughter gets sick from?

I made lentil burgers, Sunflower sticks and corn tortillas. I'm not sure which one made her sick though.

Yes, it is interesting. Maybe it is just a case of what suits one person doesn't suit another but I know how annoying that explanation can be, especially when you want answers. Does she have any allergies/intolerances? Burgers and tortillas? Do these take a very long time? Because the only thing I could think of is maybe you were drying for a very long time at a too low temperature?

Applered Wrote:
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> Thanks for the replies. My question is why doesn't
> cooked foods have the same effect on her?

Simply cooked foods (lightly steamed vegetables, for example) have a higher water content than very dehydrated foods. This may make the steamed vegetables easier to digest than the very dehydrated food.

i used to read all these raw food recipes
and i pondered getting a dehydrator
but i never did
and i'm glad i didn't
because on the few occasions when i did eat dehydrated foods
it made me feel sluggish and slow afterwards

and that wasn't what i was used to feeling
it also made me feel like i wasn't at the highest form that i could be
not sure why that is

also, there was all this confusion about how and where and what to set your dehydrator temperature to

and when i read the rainbowgreenlive food cuisine from dr. gabriel cousens

he too seemed like he couldn't figure out which was the right setting for the excalibur dehydrator

something about if its set at the usual temperatures, it could incur bacterial growth so he set it higher but then i'm thinking (isn't that gonna destroy the enzymes?)

so i just simply don't bother with it at all

i just eat my fruit and my salads
and that's good enough for me

yeah, kind of a boring diet, you could say
but it serves me well

learningtofly-I haven't been dehydrating the foods until their crisp though, they still have some moisture in them.

la_veronique-I think it's a good decision not to get a dehydrator. I was like this too for so long but then I just wanted to really get into raw and I thought it would be easier with a dehydrator so I bought an excalibur 5 tray and now I really wish I didn't. It just sits in my kitchen now taking up space.

I seem to remember something about not being allowed to eat more than a little bit of dehydrated fruits when I was kid or I got diaherra or something like. Sorry, I don't remember the details.... actually I'm not sorry at all, I don't really want to remember things like childhood diaherra! ;-)

Ian.