My grandmother taught us to “respect” food. That’s was her way to tell us to avoid food wastage. I remember how she used to sun dry morogo and other vegetables to keep them from spoiling. We always had plenty healthy foods year-round.

How I wish our generation can preserve that old art of sun drying or dehydrating foods; vegetables, fruit and meat, to avoid food waste.

We need to invest in learning the art of dehydrating foods or sun drying foods, particularly vegetables. The process is cost saving, you will not just get nutritious food but you will find that you are spending a lot less in the long run.

Making your own dehydrated food has a lot of benefits:

Reduce food waste

While we are quick to talk about lack of food and poverty in our communities, we never discuss the issue of food waste. Yes, food waste is a problem. A big one. We need to talk about preserving food. We cannot have a situation where we let fruit or vegetables rot because they are out of season.

Make great snacks

Dehydrated food makes great snack – just think of it – dried mango, banana, and of course, South Africa’s favourite, biltong. Dehydrated food is all natural, rich and delicious.

The reality is; processed snacks cost quite a bit of money, and healthy and organic dehydrated food cost even more.

You can only save money when you dehydrate food yourself.

Dehydration foods is simple and easy to learn. You can invest in buying yourself a modern food dehydrator or you can dry your food in the sun. It is that easy!

Enjoy your dried fruits, veggies and biltong!

– Mokgokong Mokgethi