Fruit Leather - Homemade Via a Food Dehydrator Versus Store Bought

Fruit leathers or fruit roll ups are a great tasting, healthy snack that can be easily made with a food dehydrator. Homemade fruit leather's basic ingredients should consist of:
• ripe or slightly overripe fruit
• if desired, juices, spices, nuts, coconut or applesauce for flavoring and or different textures and
• if desired, honey, sugar or other sweeteners.
Fruits best suitable for fruit leather include apples, apricots, bananas, berries, cherries, grapes, oranges, pears, pineapples, plums, strawberries, tangerines, and tomatoes. Applesauce can be dried alone or added to any fresh fruit puree before dehydrating. Applesauce will add sweetness and make the fruit leather smoother and more pliable. Further, spices can be added to the pre-dehydrated fruit mixture including cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, mace, mint, nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice. However, spices should be used sparingly.
Homemade fruit leathers are wholesome, 100% fruit snacks that are easy and fun to make. In contrast to homemade fruit leathers, store bought fruit roll ups are over processed, over priced, imitation fruit products that include extra sugars, extra corn syrups and trans fats as ingredients. Below is a listing of the major ingredients from a well known, branded fruit roll up product sold in a typical grocery store:
• Pears from concentrate
• Corn syrup
• Dried corn syrup
• Sugar
• Partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil
To recap:
- Homemade fruit leather or fruit roll up - 100% fruit, 100% natural ingredients that you control.
- Store bought fruit roll up - Fruit juice, corn syrups and trans fat.
- Go with the real thing - home made fruit leathers made with your food dehydrator.