Can I ask a weird question?

[janetc]

I like to use my dehydrator for my mangoes and apples because I like to stock up on these foods while they're in season.

Here's my stupid question: Will the foods have the same amount of fiber if they are dehydrated?

(Embarrassed that I do not know this)

[DopeRawAbundance]

It will still have the fiber, but... dried foods seem to have more of a clogging, slow down effect on digestion, as opposed to the digestion-aid that fibrous foods are supposed to be.

[ReneeH]

Here's what I found when I Googled it:

"The commercial process of drying fruit in large quantities is very hard on nutrients. Desirable components like beta-carotene, vitamin C, and many other nutrients are largely lost in the drying process. Fiber always remains, but on a cup-per-cup basis, calories and sugar actually go up. A cup of cranberries has about 47 calories; a cup of dried cranberries has about 363! We're all making a mistake when we routinely replace fresh fruit with its commercially dried equivalent.

With home dehydrating, however, it's a different story. A home dehydrator does nothing more than blow warm air up through the fresh fruit, and it's not nearly as harsh on the nutrients. (Many people like to start with fresh organic apple slices as a test). The fruit is still "dried" and last much longer than fresh fruit, but it isn't dried in the same way as a commercial processor would do it. Even though home dehydration is not a bad way to go from an overall nutrient standpoint, we all still need to be careful from the sugar and calories standpoint. Sometimes we might end up eating a lot more dehydrated apple slices than the amount of apple we would have eaten if we had a fresh, organic, whole apple in our hand. The chewing here and whole experience of eating can be quite different."

[DeniseM]

The only thing dehydrating does is remove water (and possibly a small amount of nutrients, depending on the temperature) -- so fiber stays exactly the same, as well as sugar content, fat content, protein content, etc. :)