Bullivant: Dry fruits, veggies for healthier snacking

By Claire Bullivant

How many of us never grab a candy bar to get us out of dire straits? If you’re like me, you want to eat healthily and get sporadic spurts of good intentions. You enthusiastically buy organic beets to roast when you get home …  and then …. life happens, and three weeks later and you’re surprised to find a watery bag of unidentified vegetable goop in the depths of the refrigerator.

Introducing my new love – the dehydrator! Dehydrating fruits and veggies means you always have a healthy snack on hand. Plus, if you sprinkle your favorite spice mix on them, you will literally find yourself craving these tasty morsels – take them to the office, have them in the car, handbag, wherever.

Here are my tips:

1) Plan time and guard it. Let’s face it, kids, jobs, spouses, wannabe and ex- spouses, friends, pets, hormones, other people’s hormones are all going to suck up any time that isn’t resolutely protected.
2) Do it anyway. You don’t need a dehydrator. Use your oven. You don’t need to have done it before. Watch a few YouTube videos and use what you have in your pantry plus your imagination. Mix and match your favorite spices and experiment with small batches. Only buy the veggies and fruit when you know you have time.
3) The dip/dressing. How much you enjoy the dip will somewhat determine whether you keep coming back for more veggies. Use healthy oils such as avocado or coconut and fancy them up with a teaspoon of decadent truffle oil (oh my, this oil is so delicious). Or just eat them plain instead of potato chips.

Next month I’m gonna get decadent with my chocolaty, lemony guilt-reduced desserts made with local farm or organic ingredients. Mmmmmh.

Claire Bullivant is the owner of Bead and Berry Coffee House, which is on hiatus for the summer.

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This column appeared in the July issue of InMaricopa.