In those weeks, Lidl Belgium is offering its clients a dehydrator machine.

With a cost of 39.99 Euros, this kitchen-aid tool from Silvercrest is a temptation to many of us.

Obviously, you can find a dehydrator on Amazon as well, and they have great reviews, photos and videos.

I wanted a dehydrator for a while now, being myself a big fan of dehydrated fruit.

So when the last week my husband came home with it to give me a surprise, I couldn’t hold my excitement.

Yes, I know.

It’s the Thirties-and-something.

One day you get excited about parties.

One day you wake up, and you become a functional adult.

Or something close to being one.

I love dried apple chips, so that was it.

That was going to be my first experiment with the dehydrator.

I cut them into thin slices, placed them on the trails and followed the instructions to turn on the machine.

The kitchen started smelling a lovely scent of apples, and I felt like Snow White for a split second.

I must admit that when the instructions say that also a kid could use this machine, they mean it.

How long does it take to dehydrate food?

The process takes a while.

I wasn’t aware that dehydrating apples takes an average of 7-8 hours and a temperature of 70 degrees.

But when I ate my very first dehydrated apple slice, it was all worthy.

The machine works great, and it is almost silent, making it usable also if you, just like me, have a home office and Zoom meetings.

But will my food lose any nutritional value?

Quoting WebMD:

The dehydrating process retains a food’s original nutritional value. For example, apple chips will have the same calorie, protein, fat, carbohydrate, fibre, and sugar content as the fresh fruit.

However, because dried food loses its water content, it’s usually smaller in size and has more calories by weight. Keep your portions of dehydrated foods smaller than what is recommended for unprocessed food to avoid overeating.

So dehydrating food may be a great solution if you are searching for a natural method to preserve your food.

Our ancestors used to do so by drying the food in the sun and then storing it away.

In 2022 things got way easier, and we can count on useful tools like those food dehydrators.

The one I have from Lidl is also easy to clean and store away.

So should you buy it?

Is it fun to use? Absolutely.

Is it worth the money? One hundred per cent, yes!

Right now, I am dehydrating a kilo and a half of apples to have my healthy snacks for the week.

It’s a great investment and it helps save a lot of food.

Yes, the time frame to produce one batch of snacks is large as we are talking about hours.

But still, I am extremely happy with it.

This article is not sponsored or paid, and I do not have any affiliation with Lidl.

I just found that it could be useful to share my point of you on something regularly purchased.

However, the post contains affiliate links to Amazon.com.

Let me know if you are also a fan of dehydrating and which machine you have or if you would like to try one!