Preserve your harvest with free energy from the sun. As more and more people are recognizing the importance of food quality in their daily lives here is a chance for you to make an ‘inexpensive’ Solar Food Dehydrator. The main principle behind food dehydration is simple: to remove an ample quantity or the majority (depending on the desired product), of water content from food products. Since the water content of foods is high, 80-95% in many fruits/vegetables and 75% or less in meats, the product weighs much less, and its volume is reduced. Also, without water, the food becomes an unfavorable medium for the growth of bacteria or fungi. If dehydrated when ripe, determined from a nutritional standpoint, the maximum quantity of nutrients can be preserved.
How To:
Take two cardboard boxes, some clear plastic wrap, and a little tape. Set it on a stool or chair and face it’s solar collector towards the sun, and you have a functional food preservation machine for little work and even less money. Solar radiation passes through the clear glass top of a wooden dehydrator box, then the heat trapped by the box dries the food. The dehydrator also may have an absorber plate inside, which indirectly heats your food and creates a convection current of air that enters a vent at the bottom of the dryer (see illustration). The cool, fresh air that enters the vent heats up, circulates through the dryer, and then exits through a vent at the top. As your food dries, moisture is carried away with the hot air.
