Fresh vs Frozen Food
With the advent of freezers, we're able to keep our food
lasting longer than ever before.
But is there a
difference between fresh and frozen produce in terms of nutrition?
Which should
you be eating?
Your instinct may be to shout out, "Of course
fresh food is better!"
"It's
fresh!"
And you may be
right, but it's highly dependent on the circumstances.
In many
instances, the food you take off the shelf in a grocery store has been
harvested under-ripe to avoid damage during travel time.
This means it
hasn't yet reached its peak nutrition.
Furthermore,
the minute it was picked, its nutritional content began to deteriorate.
The food is
then loaded on a truck, boat or plane, travels for days, and waits on a shelf
for you to choose it.
Afterwards, it
may sit in your fridge for a few more days before being eaten.
Over this
period of potentially weeks, the food may lose
up to 50 percent of its nutritional value.
Frozen foods,
on the other hand, are picked when they're ripe and frozen immediately.
And while the
quick freeze process does affect some of the vitamin content, it essentially freezes, or locks, most of the
nutrients in place.
Next to the
fresh produce that has been sitting around for weeks, there's no doubt that
frozen foods can contain more nutrition.
Particularly
during the month that local produce is not in season and travelling far
distances.
In a series of
studies, after three days of storage,
frozen broccoli had higher levels of Vitamin C and Beta-Carotene, frozen
blueberries were much higher in polyphenols and anthocyanins, and frozen
sprouts scored higher on all nutrient measurements.
Of course, if
you pick a fresh vegetable from your garden, or get it from a local farmer's
market, and eat it that date, nothing can quite compare to both the nutrition
and the taste.
But, unless
you're able to shop every few days, frozen produce can be a great nutritionally
comparable alternative.
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