We've been dehydrating our backpacking food for years. We started because we found few vegan backpacking meal options. At first it took a little time to learn the temperatures and time needed to dehydrate various foods, how to prepare food for dehydrating, and what we could and couldn't dehydrate. But after a short time, dehydrating became second nature and we now happily and easily dehydrate most of our backpacking meals.

Overall, we want our meals to be as whole as possible, without preservatives and chemicals. We want food that is nutritious, devoid of animal products, ethically produced, inexpensive, and readily available. We also want our food to be tasty and meet our desire for variety. But as backpackers, we also seek meals that are lightweight, compact, durable, and unlikely to spoil. By dehydrating our own food, we can easily meet these criteria.