Ivation 6-Tray Digital Food Dehydrator - 480W Countertop Drying Machine with Adjustable Temperature, Timer & Even Heat for Beef Jerky, Fruits, Veggies, Herbs | Perfect for Healthy Snacks, Camping Food Prep & Long-Term Food Storage

I recommend you purchase one of the Ivation brand dehydrators. It’s sleek look will complement most any kitchen. My spouse and I originally purchased ours to dehydrate vegetables and herbs we grow in our garden and it works great for that. For spices/herbs you can put them on the highest temp setting for 4 hours then use an herb stripper on Rosemary for example and place it in a food processor, mince, and vacuum seal it them 4 oz. mason jars using a Foodsaver and a jar sealer.Later on thinking about kindness not just to myself but to all others I starting thinking about my consumption of dairy products and how I could do my best to lower it without suffering. I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons but do consume some dairy products. One of them is yogurt. Non-fat Greek yogurt makes an excellent substitute for sour cream in a dip or on a Boston style vegetarian chili. Well you can make Greek Yogurt using a Ivation dehydrator-the setting is 8 hours on 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Guess what? You can even use it as a seed starter on the lower temperature setting. Plant some seeds, and place the pots in the Ivation dehydrator on the low setting and take them out and mist them daily, keeping them moist.Why did I start making yogurt? See, I kept thinking about the cows. Do cows really like to be milked? Do cows have great living conditions? Do these dairy cows have male spouses (bulls) that they get along with or are they forced to be with other females? Were they forced to breed (raped and impregnated) just to have them produce milk? This upset me so much I decided to switch from drinking organic non-fat milk to organic soy milk. I went through a lot of soy milk containers before I realized that perhaps trees were cut down to make them. Fortunately, I found a workable solution in the form of the GJS Soy Milk Maker available on Amazon. This wonderful device not only makes soy, rice and almond milk but also makes all sorts of things, including tofu-if you get a tofu press. I have even taken fresh tomatoes and made pasta sauce in mine. It comes with just about everything you need to get started, a strainer, and two things to clean the machine with. It also has a self clean function in case you left it sit a long time. You just need to get some 64 ounce Mason jars, Organic Soy Beans from Bob’s Red Mill –available on the Bob’s Red Mill Site, and a Rocco Bormioli funnel (available on Amazon,) a Foodsaver 4980 as well as several large mouth jar sealers, (so if they are dirty and in the dishwasher you always have a clean one handy.)That’s it. You can reseal the Bob’s Red Mill bags with the Foodsaver sealer function and keep them in the refrigerator. Batch up some soy milk then vacuum seal it with the Foodsaver, but if you pour it in the jars right away it is hot enough they will vacuum seal on their own. Before I got Mason jars we were using large glass spaghetti sauce jars and the lids always popped when we opened them. The advantage of the vacuum sealer is you can vacuum seal it after each use so that the soy milk no longer has a short shelf date. It is like you just popped open a fresh box each time you pop open your jar thereby guaranteeing the freshest soy milk ever.UPDATE 12/3/18-several years after using my dehydratorI got so overwhelmed trying to keep up with my yogurt needs I had to admit I could not do it. The small batches of soymilk and the resulting amount of Greek yogurt it produced and the long hours involved were too much. I eat a lot of Greek yogurt and use it as a butter substitute, a cream sauce base, in smoothies, in cheese sauces, in cakes, soups, etc. I am a vegetarian and eat very healthy so I had to go back to purchasing Organic Greek Yogurt, though I still use my dehydrator for making many other things. I look forward to when store bought Greek Yogurt is also available from organic soybeans. I use my yogurt makers for other things also and still make my own soymilk and nut milk rather than drinking dairy. I am certain those that just have a small amount of yogurt for lunch each day or something like that may find dehydrators great for making yogurt, especially if they do not make as many homemade foods as I. THE LATEST AMAZING THING I DISCOVERED IVATION DEHYDRATORS ARE GREAT FOR: I also make fantastic and delicious homemade Mustard Green Chips in just 4 hours. I think these are tastier than kale chips. I grow my own Mustard Greens (very quick growing,) and spray them with extra virgin olive oil and rub some salt on them. Then I place them in the dehydrator for four hours on the highest temperature (158 degrees Fahrenheit.) Easy recipe.MY VEGETARIAN 'TASTES JUST LIKE MEAT JERKY RECIPE':Spray trays with canola oil. Slice one package of vegetarian Smart Dogs VERY THIN, (I slice mine in my deli slicer wearing protective gloves,) coat generously with Sweet and Sour sauce then dehydrate at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for 4-6 hours (depending on how you like the texture of your jerky. Soak the trays in a solution of citric acid and water, then scrub them quickly with a chainmail type scrubber before placing trays the dishwasher. (I found this out after having a tough time cleaning the trays after making veggie jerky. Citric acid and chainmail scrubbers work great!-Julie Sands