shedd aquarium: If you dehydrate a vegetable isn't it dead? Why do so many raw recipes use the dehydrator so much?|||If you dehydrate certain plant life or any kind of life, it usually is dead or rapidly dying. However, all plants do not die as soon as you separate them from their roots. Lots of plants actually have the ability in the right circumstances to grow a new root system after it is separated from the main plant. That is why cuttings are so popular with some gardeners. Other plants actually go into a dormant state when they lose water. See the desert, there are lots of plants in the desert just waiting for rain to wake them up. Edit: After a certain point, dehydrated plant cells can not be revived. Seeds are the dormant part of the plant. If you want the benefit of "live" food, you have to eat the plant while it is still fresh. Dehydrated plants have lost something when dehydrated but they are still good for you. It is actually the seed that is the important part to the plant anyway. The part we and animals usually eat, like in fruit, is just the plant's way of reproducing.|||I have always understood raw to mean the food never went higher than 140F. I don't know what is so magical about 140, but I believe that's the number I've heard thrown around. Since dehydrators only use a little heat (like 90) the food is still "raw". And vegetables are not "dead" on a celluar level even after being harvested. Modern science has made the term "dead" a lot more a gray area than it used to be. Look at all the people that have "died" from being underwater for many minutes and are brought back. They weren't dead on a cellular level, they were just not breathing and had no pulse. It's somewhat true for veggies. They continue to respire long after harvest.|||Once you cut it from the roots its dead. Because it cant grow anymore since its not attached to the roots Dehydrate means all the moisture is sucked out and dehydrated veggies or like spices last longer because they cant get moldy since they have to water|||Dehydrating kills plants, it's like plant mummification. If you let seeds dry out naturally they are still alive, but using heat like a dehydrator can kill them.|||"Raw" does not mean "alive", it just means "not cooked". Vegetables are only alive while they are attached to the plant they grew on.|||Vegetables, just like all plants are already dead once they aren't connected to their roots anymore.|||they still have enzyms in them|||You actually hear the little scream when you pull it out of the ground.