That’s actually a very good question. Here at the sweet lyfe, we spend a lot of time talking about the coolness that is freeze-drying candy and many other foods, but is the process actually good for you? Well, let's take a look at the pros and cons.
Let’s start with the positives. The main selling point of freeze-dried food is that it retains its nutritional value. It also maintains the calorie and fibre count of the food you freeze-dried. That means that if it's good for you before you put it into a freeze dryer, it’ll still be good for you when it comes out. This gives freeze dried food an advantage over other food persevering processes, which rely on high heat at the cost of nutritional value.
Freeze drying uses the process of sublimation and removes the water from the food while it's still in its ice form. However, since it removes the water, it can also remove some water-soluble nutrients such as vitamin C and folate. Though this can sound bad, you will end up losing the same amounts of these nutrients if you left a frozen pizza in the freezer for a week and then decided to cook it. So in the grand scheme of things you’re still getting great nutritional value.
Freeze-dried food is also nutritionally dense, as it loses a lot of weight when the water is extracted from it. This leaves small airy versions of the food you freeze dried. This way you can eat 100 grams of apples, but instead of getting the nutritional value of half an apple, you'd be getting much more for the same weight.
Lastly, unlike other food preservation processes, you do not need to add chemicals to freeze-dried food to increase its longevity. That means that when you do get around to eating said food, you're not ingesting any unnecessary chemicals. This helps to all around make the food healthy, clean, and safe to eat.
To sum it up, freeze dried food is good for you as it retains most of its nutritional value making the quality almost identical to regular food. It is safe to eat dry or rehydrated, making it a light and airy snack or a hearty meal once rehydrated. Due to it keeping its nutrition, freeze dried food is used by astronauts to hikers. This allows them to have and carry light nutritious meals to aid their journeys wherever they go.