The only nutrient missing from dehydrated food is the moisture as long as the food is dehydrated “correctly.”

This is why I have been on the bandwagon since circa 2001-2003 educating the avian community to feed raw food to our exotic companion birds. Even if we cut, dice and puree our birds’ foods. As long as we don’t heat our birds’ foods over 115 degrees almost all of the original nutrients are present in the foods we serve!

“Processed” is a relative term and can be thrown around like a ragdoll. As soon as any food is taken from the ground, washed and brought to market it is “processed.” Just “how processed” foods are is the million dollar debate.

In our world of commercial bird food when I speak of “highly processed commercial bird food” I am personally speaking of individual ingredients that have been ground beyond any recognition, made into a cardboard-colored slurry, heated to high temperatures usually at or over 140 degrees (usually much higher, but sometimes not heated at all) and then mechanically extruded or forced by mechanically high pressure through dies forming “pellets.” At the end of the production process, due to the high heat and mechanical manipulation the original ingredients have lost almost all of their original nutrients and therefore synthetic, laboratory supplements must be added back in, usually via the addition of low-grade oils such as canola, corn, safflower or corn carrier oils containing piggy-backed synthetic Vitamin A and Vitamin D and sometimes Vitamin K. In addition all sorts of laboratory produced chemical mineral salts, potentially high in salicylates to bring the mineral levels back up.

This sort of nutrient loss does not take place in correctly dehydrated foods even when those foods are properly pureed before dehydration. Properly dehydrated foods, even when minimally processed are still considered “raw, whole foods” because they have not been heated or put under pressure causing extreme nutrient loss.

While it is true that some amount of nutrition is lost at every step of “the process” after food has been removed from the ground, as long as food is not heated over 115 degrees or placed under high pressure it actually retains most of its nutrition even when ground. That’s why we can obtain organic powders, dried seeds, grains and legumes and reconstitute or sprout them and have nutritious foods to take on hikes, store for long periods of time, etc. Dehydration is one of the oldest and most reliable methods of food preservation. Even freezing isn’t as reliable because during the thawing process cell walls burst causing nutrient loss. Freeze-drying has come a long way. Former methods required that "cryoprotectants" had to be used. These added sugars to foods. Today's freeze-drying methods do not require cryoprotectants and freeze-dried foods maintain up to 97% of the original nutrients. This is why we have added freeze-dried foods to our selection of foods for your flock!

BirD-elicious! Origins Wild Diet® foods decided to use gentle dehydration early on in the production of our foods. We learned that as long as foods are dehydrated at or below 115 degrees original digestive enzymes, amino acids (proteins), fatty acids (omegas), and vitamins and minerals are all almost retained. Therefore there is no need to add any of these synthetic, laboratory produced supplements. We actually dehydrate well below 115 degrees with the understanding that is more about the “air flow” than the temperature when it comes to proper dehydration.

In fact those who have been in the business of dehydration for any length of time know that the temperature in which the dehydrator is set is not the internal temperature of the food anyway. One may set the dehydrator at 115 degrees F but the internal temperature of the food may only be 105 degrees F. This is due to the velocity of the air flow plus the external moisture drying off the food decreases the internal temperature of the food. Obviously the lower the dehydrator is set the lower the internal temperature of the food itself.

You can be sure that when you buy Origins Wild Diet® foods your bird is receiving the maximum raw food nutrition your bird deserves. We never add any synthetic, laboratory produced supplements to our regular recipes of delicious and naturally nutritious “morsels.”

Ref: https://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/intro-to-dehydrating; https://www.consumerlab.com/answers/midity+destroy+whey+protein+and+other+sports+nutrition+supplements+(e.g.,+creatine,+BCAAs,+digestive+enzymes)+during+shipping+or+while+storing+at+home/whey_protein_heat.

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