Late last fall (about mid-November) I dehydrated some carrots. My dehydrating book said you could steam blanch them before dehydrating or you could dehydrate them raw. So I did some of each. If you want to read the whole post, go here: Dehydrating carrots. Now it’s been 10 months and the carrots have been stored in a mason jar in my dark food room for most of that time, but something curious has happened. The steam blanched carrots still look very much the same, but the raw carrots are fading. They are losing color. Take a look:
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Dehydrated carrots right after drying: steam blanched on left, raw on right
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Dehydrated carrots 10 months later: steam blanched on left, raw on right
Check out the color loss on the raw carrots! And they were stored in my dark food room the whole time.
So I asked my local extension agent about it. We’re pretty close, the extension office and me. She said that the blanching stops some enzymatic process and that is why the raw carrots have lost color. According to her, there should be little difference nutritionally, but there’s obviously quite a difference in the appearance, so the blanched carrots are much more appealing to eat. And that’s definitely true.
So, even though it’s a bit more work, I think blanching carrots for dehydrating is worth it for the much more appealing and storage stable end product. I’ll be blanching all my dehydrated carrots from now on.
