Intuitive Fruit Dehydrating Yoga

August 10th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Dinner Time

I found the instructions for my food dehydrator online and got to work this morning.

As instructed, I soaked sliced bananas in lemon juice for a few minutes before placing them on the tray.

lemon juice

Two trays of these guys.

banana tray

Sliced up and cored a red delicious apple, soaked in lemon juice and onto the tray they went.

Apple Tray

And a kiwi tray. Peeled, but not soaked.

Kiwi Tray

All that fruit slicing – call me crazy – I went ahead ate a hydrated kiwi with reckless abandon. I’m a wild woman.

Hydrated Kiwi

I was a little disturbed by the fact that this fruit was going to have to dry for 4 – 16 hours. First, 4 – 16 HOURS?? But second, that’s quite the range! Oh well. Here goes nothing.

While the juices in my fruit were evaporating, we did our thing around the house and eventually it was lunch time.

Who wants salad?

Ooooo me me! I do! I do! Me! Over here!

Monday Salad

Red leaf, onion, grape tomatoes, raw corn off the cob and mushrooms tossed in Good Seasons Italian.

I ate my massive salad but still felt empty. I had a couple of my favorite date and almond butter guys.

Date

And still – not feeling satisfied. Just feeling annoyed and frustrated. Maybe I should have left the kitchen, but I didn’t feel motivated to go do anything else. I ate a couple of carrots that I forgot to put on my salad, hoping that might do the trick. I’m beginning to wonder if I sabotaged myself this morning with no juice or fruit first thing and having coffee and oats instead. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.

One thing I learned from Intuitive Eating is that if you are REALLY craving something – just eat it. Don’t waste calories eating other stuff with the hope that you’ll forget about your craving. Chances are you’re going to eventually eat what you’re craving anyway AND you ate all that other stuff FIRST trying to forget about your craving. How many times have I wanted a cookie in the cupboard but ate other stuff first, then ate that damn cookie anyway. If I can just get it out of the way I can move past the craving and save myself a bunch of unnecessary calories.

Except today I could not figure out what it was that I wanted. It was like an unreachable itch. I wanted something sweet. I wanted something savory. But nothing sounded appealing. Eventually it dawned on me and felt like I needed some protein.

I remembered I had a container of Fage in the fridge and rummaged through the cupboard for something fun to put on top.

I found this sample of Bakery on the Main gluten free granola in the cupboard and had at it.

Bakery on the Main granola sample

On top of 2% Fage, it was perfect and exactly what I needed.

Granola on Fage

But was it what I needed? I guess I can’t be sure. Maybe enough time had passed from lunch and my brain finally registered that I had eaten and the fullness hormones set in. Or maybe I really did need some protein. But either way, my itch was scratched and I was able to leave the kitchen in peace.

Aunt Ellen was coming to stay with the girls while I went to my yoga class. Around 5:00 I whipped up a quick whatever-I-have-in-the-cupboard veggie chili.

I sauteed green pepper and onion in some EVOO until soft. Added two cans of diced tomatoes and a little water and bring to a boil. A can of black beans, a can of red kidney beans, both drained and rinsed, then about 8 oz of frozen corn. Some cumin, chili powder, cilantro. Voila. Veggie chili.

Veggie Chili

With a slice of toasted, dry wheat bread. Ellen arrived in time for dinner and we ate together before I jetted out the door to get to yoga.

And oh yeah. Yoga class? LOVED IT! I have to say that yogadownload.com prepared me well for this intermediate level class today, it was fab!

I got home and checked on my fruit loot.

Fruit Loot

Thoughts on dehydrating after today’s experiments:

1. Choosing to run a machine that blows hot air into the house on THE SAME DAY I run the air conditioner trying to cool the house is not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I think I’ll be waiting to try this again until winter.

2. While these turned out ok, honestly I just would have preferred to have eaten the fresh fruit.

3. And third – cut the bananas *a little* thicker, so that you make banana chips instead of banana glue.

Stuck Bananas

A fun thing to try, but not something I see myself doing on a regular basis. At the very least not while it’s 90 degrees and humid outside! Good lord woman. But we munched our dried fruit away and called it a day.

The End.


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24 Responses

  • bananas and lemon juice! Sounds like a good time!

  • Whit says:

    haha, sounds like we were on the same wavelength with our eating today. I could find no snacks to satisfy me either. Instead of yogurt and granola I had chocolate though. I am such a freaking chocoholic it’s embarrassing.

  • Lizzy says:

    good experimenting today! i’ve only had a number of things that were dried, so i’m anxious to see what else you come up with. any ideas for the future?

  • Christina says:

    (1) very true about just eating what you are craving! (2) check out my latest post- im making (well made but just didnt eat yet haha) your beloved breakfast cookie! (3) and fitnessista uses her dehydrator to make macaroons and everyone seems to love these things (ive never had it) but maybe consider something something else with your dehydrator besides fruit. http://www.fitnessista.com/2009/07/raw-arrabiata-sauce-and-evil-deed.html

  • Tay says:

    I’m not such a huge fan of dehydrated/dried fruit. I too, would rather just eat the REAL thing, and get all the nutrients and goodies with it!

  • Lainie says:

    Welcome to my world girl – I have not been satisfied at all lately! Not sure what it is, but it’s quite annoying.

    Do you love your food dehydrator? Is it huge? I’m dying to get one but I’m afraid it’s going to be so big and I’m going to have no where to store it.

  • I’m glad you had a good yoga class! :)

    And I’m looking forward to some more dehydrator experiments when it’s a bit cooler… 😉

  • Cindy says:

    I hate it when I am hungry….and CAN’T figure out WHAT…it’s FRUSTRATING!

    and I forget to add in protein…very helpful!

    I don’t think I would dehydrate fruit…unless I had tons going bad…. than maybe…I actually want to make bars and crackers and raw bread…. that’s what I’m TALKING ABOUT!

    can Aunt Ellen come over and help with JJ? She sounds AWESOME!

    I should get back on yoga download.com. i’ve been distracted with da treadmill….9 more days!!!!!

    did your banana chips taste good? I made them before…they were brown and gross (directions said nothing about soaking them…duh

    my teenager is being a goof….bye!

  • Erica says:

    haha- I’ve always wanted a dehydrator (Since I love dried fruit but don’t like all of the added sugars a lot of the ones at the store have in them). 4-16 hours? Thats quite a range (worse than when you have a repair man coming to the house!!).

    Glad you enjoyed the yoga.

    I hate those days when you cannot figure out what you want! At least you went with lots of healthy options! That is great!

    Enjoy your Tuesday

  • I need to make some veggie chili…thats exactly what I’m in the mood for right now (just ignore the fact that I’m typing this at 6:45 in the morning..chili is good anytime, in my opinion…ha!)

    I would love to try dehydrating more fruit, especially in the fall when all the fresh apples come along!! I’ve never tried it with kiwi but it sounds like it would be amazing dehydrated. 😀

  • Erin says:

    Yeah for yoga! That’s awesome that you enjoyed your class. My favorite teacher is moving to NYC so I’m hoping to find another good one around here.

    And your post about journaling was totally not annoying. Totally helpful. I’ve been using Sparkpeople to track my calories for me, but maybe I need to write it down in a notebook so that I can see it right in front of me. Sometimes the virtual stuff is easy to do, but not as “real” if that makes sense. I calculated the M, F, and EF for myself and will probably create my own code too. Thanks for being all nerdy and sharing with me!

  • Jennifer says:

    Definitely try the dehydrator again in the winter. Is that something you could turn on overnight so that it would keep the house toasty warm and also give you the dried fruit in the morning?

    I’m glad you loved the yoga class. :)

  • jessinNYC says:

    Happy to hear you were able to listen to your body and figure out exactly what you needed yesterday.

  • Mollie says:

    Ali- you mentioned storing your dehydrator in the basement; my husband actually uses his while it’s in the basement – for the reason you mentioned, and so the whole house doesn’t smell like jerky! something to consider :)

  • A says:

    Thoughts on the dehydrator….. How about plugging it in outside?? Also, I’ve seen other people use it when they have a bunch of a fruit or veggies that they need to preserve before it goes bad. So, maybe if you get a great deal on a bunch of bananas but they are super ripe and you can’t possibly eat them in time…. you could make chips! Also, you could start a little collection of chips going. The over the weekend you can throw them in your bag for the girls to eat while you’re out. I’m still jealous of it!! Have you thought about experimenting with making raw crackers or anything else in it (other than fruit)?? Check out Green and Crunchy’s blog. She uses hers a lot!! :)
    -A

  • mponz says:

    so glad you enjoyed yoga! I was always one to go every once in a while…aka once-twice/year. I enjoyed it but I was never CRAZY about it. Now that I am practicing it regularly, I LOVE it. Yoga does so many wonderful things for you!

  • janetha says:

    jealous of your dehydrator! i saw on another blog today~sarah, tales of expansion~dried watermelon! looked so good. my favorite line in this post was “Don’t waste calories eating other stuff with the hope that you’ll forget about your craving” SO TRUE!! i couldnt agree more! you just eat and eat and eat and are left unsatisfied.

  • Vegmom says:

    Ha, I was going to suggest Green and Crunchy as well. She makes chips, breads, cookies from pulp, lots of good things still to try.

    But I’m soooo glad you posted this, because I had no idea about the heat and smell. I actually figured it would make the house smell fruity good and didn’t even think it would get yuck smell. All GOOD stuff to know and will make me contemplate the timing of actually getting one.

    I still wonder what it would be like to make dried berries, zuchinni chips, potato chips etc. And just throw them in packs on the go, where we can’t necessarily have fruit and veggies at the ready.

    Especially for traveling, hiking, lunch boxes… Hmmm? Even something to throw in a baggy in a pocket for a long walk or run without worrying of it melting and such…I dunno… Will have to keep checking back to see what you come up with.

    As the Dehydrator turns…