Reconnect With Your Inner Child and Make Delicious, Homemade Fruit Roll Ups

Foraging in Alaska reminded us and inspired us to make an all natural version of our favorite childhood snack at home in our Airstream. Here's how you can do it too without a dehydrator

Sep 14, 2025

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When I was a kid, some of my favorite snacks were Fruit Roll-ups, Gushers, and Fruit by the Foot. My house wasn't a huge junk food house, but these chewy gummy candies were somehow permitted. Every week, we would head to Publix, and my parents would let me choose one of these to enjoy at home. It was the late 80s/early 90s, so we were blissfully unaware of the adverse effects of the food dye Red 40. These were the only candies we had in my house, so I savored each chewy, sweet, strawberry-flavored bite with my after-school episode of Saved by the Bell.

A few decades and three kids later, I’m in Alaska. Fruit rollups were the farthest thing from my mind as I was trying to survive the day, sick as a dog, with what I would later find out was probably Covid, driving up a windy road, trying to understand why I was feeling so lethargic and weak. With the turquoise Susitna River on our right, we were headed up to Hatcher's Pass, a high mountain landscape reminiscent of the Swiss Alps. As we got up into the higher elevations, we noticed people on the side of the road bent over, peppering the landscape with their orange buckets. Wild blueberries were tucked away in the bushes all around, so we pulled over and went for a bit of forage in this stunning alpine valley crisscrossed by creeks hidden by shrubs and berry trees. I was struggling to move, so I rested by the creek while Jaron and the kids went picking.

They picked these tiny and tart but sweet wild blueberries, and I thought, why not try to turn them into roll-ups? We have gradually attempted to replace the things they love that contain Red 40 with healthier alternatives. Today, we understand that this ubiquitous ingredient that is found in so many of our favorite childhood snacks and cereals is actually quite damaging, especially to children. We now know that Red 40 is linked to allergic reactions, digestive and inflammatory issues, neurological and behavioral impact, and potential DNA damage. How could we continue to give our children foods that contain this toxic ingredient?

Blueberries, in contrast, are so good for you! They're a superfood, with this laundry list of health benefits, with powerful antioxidants that reduce stress and inflammation, potentially protecting against several chronic diseases. I was excited to use them as the star ingredient in a roll-up for my kids. Since we got so many, dehydrating the fruit is a great way to save space in our small airstream fridge, as well as making for an easy and convenient car snack. We have been experimenting with various versions of this nostalgic snack for a couple of years now. Our kids loved the mango rollups we made last mango season in Miami.

We were also lucky to have a wild raspberry bush at our campsite, so they went picking there too. With the abundance of berries and too little time to eat them all, we decided jams and homemade fruit roll-ups would be a nice way to preserve and use them before they spoil. We bought rhubarb at the farmers’ market, and while we would usually make some version of a crumble or crisp with that, we decided it could be delicious in the roll-ups too. The jams/compotes are basically just the fruit boiled down and reduced to a jam-like consistency. They are delicious on their own, as an oatmeal topping, pancake/waffle topping, or pureeing and then making dried fruit leather. (aka fruit roll-ups). We opted for a bit of both and saved a jar of jam and used the rest for the roll-ups.