Healthy frozen foods

What happens after the carrot is dug up from the ground or the tomato is picked up from the plant?

It is a long time before fresh products find their way to our tables. Vegetables are on average three days on the way from the field and in the shop. For other three days they are kept in our refrigerators. Although they are picked or gathered in the best harvesting time, they lose vitamins and minerals during the journey as they use them for their own metabolic processes.

The example may be green beans, which lose 40% of their vitamin C contents within 24 hours from being picked up. Other vegetables and fruits are also subject to such processes..

Vegetable slowly lose their nutritional values after they were harvested. This process can be stopped, however.

Nutritional value of frozen vegetables is maintained very well because the time between harvesting and freezing is reduced to the minimum – it takes no more than a few hours. Most vitamins are very well preserved in freshly frozen or canned vegetables – maintains Dr. Barbara Klein of the University of Illinois in Champaign who investigates differences between fresh and frozen vegetables.

Of course, there is a loss in vitamins

... when freezing. The highest loss regards vitamin C (approx. 25%), somewhat lower loss is in other vitamins (e.g. vitamin B₁ – approx. 10%). However, the initial loss in nutritional compounds caused by freezing is compensated by lower loss due to keeping vegetables frozen. For example, carotene in preserves is protected against destroying light by packages. Frozen
peas contain approx. 60% more carotene than fresh peas displayed at the shop – due to, among other things, lower exposure to the light.

Sometimes frozen products may be even more nutritious than the non-processed ones

Researchers of the Austrian Association of Consumers compared nutritional values of frozen and fresh vegetables imported in winter from Italy, Spain, Turkey and Israel. The vitamin contents in frozen peas, cauliflower, beans, corn and carrot were much higher than in case of imported fresh vegetables. One should bear in mind that fresh vegetables sold at shops in the winter most often originate from Southern Europe or Northern Africa and have much lower vitamin and mineral content than domestic vegetables in the season.

Large amounts of water and long-lasting cooking deprive vegetables of their values

It is also worth emphasising that in order to preserve the best values in both fresh and processed vegetables, they should be preferably steamed or cooked in the microwave oven (not with a large amount of water).