Home-made fruit powder – vitamins in the form of powder?
We all know it: fruit is healthy and provides the body with important nutrients like fibre, vitamins and minerals. However, some people find it difficult to get their five a day. A new food trend is making that easier: fruit powder. To find out what’s behind the new food, whether it’s truly healthy and how you can easily make your own at home, read on.
The key points
- Fruit powder is made from freeze-dried fruits.
- Due to the preservative nature of the freeze-drying process, fruit powder contains nearly the same amount of nutrients.
- Fruit powder doesn’t make one feel as full as normal fruit due to the lack of water.
- Some fruit powders contain additives such as beta-carotene or steviol glycoside, which comes from stevia.
- You can use fruit powder in smoothies or yoghurts, as a natural colouring agent in baking, in salad dressings, ice cream, fruit teas, lemonades or as a fruity note in curries.
How is fruit powder made?
Fruit powder is made from freeze-dried fruits. The fruits are frozen directly after being harvested at temperatures as low as -50 °C. Water is then removed by means of a vacuum, which immediately evaporates the water and prevents the fruit from becoming liquefied. In the final step, the freeze-dried fruit is then ground to a powder and packed into suitable cans or bags. As the entire process is rather energy-intensive, it’s not particularly environmental, but the fruit powder can be stored for a long time. The important thing is that the powder is sealed in an air-tight container as it can very quickly form clumps.
Is fruit powder healthy?
Before we talk about the use and production of fruit power, let’s first address the issue of whether the contents of this new type of powder are even roughly equivalent to fresh fruit. The good news first: as a result of the protective properties of freeze-drying, almost all of the nutrients, such as vitamin C, are retained, meaning that fruit powder remains quite rich in nutrients. However, fresh fruit is 100 % free of additives, so fruit powder should never be seen as a complete replacement for fresh fruit. This is because some fruit powders contain added beta-carotene or steviol glycosides from stevia, for example. One should also keep in mind that normal fruit contains a great deal of water in comparison to fruit powder. This means that you feel fuller quicker when you eat fresh fruit, even though it’s generally lower in calories, which also makes it an ideal snack. Fruit powder is also quite a bit more expensive than fresh fruit. 50 grammes of mango powder can cost €3.50, which is more than an equivalent amount of fruit fresh from the supermarket. But, due to the highly concentrated nature of fruit powder, you need less of it, making it a good dietary supplement that provides variety for people who might otherwise eat too little fresh fruit.
Home-made fruit powder
If you’d like to know exactly what’s in your fruit powder, we recommend making your own. But you’re going to need a little time and patience. There are different methods for making your own fruit powder. The quickest is by using heat rather than cold in the drying process. To do so, you’ll ideally need a dehydrator, but you can also dry the fruit in the oven. The first step is to spread the fruit of your choice, such as berries, pineapple, mango or apricots, on a baking tray lined with baking paper and dry it at approximately 50 °C for around five to six hours. Depending on the water content of your preferred fruit, the drying process may be shorter or longer. The fruit is ready for the next step when liquid is no longer released when you press down on it, and it feels dry and hard. Once the fruit has cooled down, you can powder it. To do so, you’ll need either a food processor or a coffee grinder. And that’s it! Your home-made fruit powder is finished.
Uses for fruit powder
There’s no limit to the uses you can find for your fruit powder if you put your mind to it. The classic one of course is to throw the powder in with your smoothies or yoghurt. Naturally colouring your baked goods is another fantastic use for this new food trend. The advantage? As opposed to fresh fruits, the powder doesn’t contain water so the consistency of the dough isn’t changed. The intense aroma of the powder means that a little bit goes a long ways toward giving your food extraordinarily fruity flavours. The powder can easily find its way into salad dressings, ice creams, fruit teas and soft drinks or even add a fruity note to curries. If you turn your seasonal berries into powder in the summer, for example, thanks to the long shelf life of the powder, you can bring the flavours of summer to your kitchen even in the darkest months of winter. Have fun trying it out!
