Well: Are Frozen Fruits and Vegetables as Nutritious as Fresh?

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Freezing can barely alter the dietary composition of vegatables and fruits, typically in favor of the frozen product and typically in favor of the recent, however over all, "there's no clear winner," mentioned Ali Bouzari, who has performed research evaluating recent and frozen produce and now runs Pilot R+D, a culinary analysis and growth firm in Sonoma County, Calif. "It actually relies upon which plant you're speaking about."

Although nutritional vitamins can degrade in recent vegatables and fruits over time, many vitamins in meals are a lot hardier than most individuals assume, Dr. Bouzari mentioned. "Minerals like iron are virtually bulletproof, and the fiber doesn't care in any respect whether or not it's heated or frozen," he mentioned. And usually, the variations in nutrient ranges between recent and frozen are so minor that they might be unlikely to have an effect on total well being, and dietitians usually encourage folks to eat as many vegatables and fruits as they will, in no matter type they take pleasure in.

Dr. Bouzari and colleagues on the College of California, Davis, in contrast the vitamin content material in eight totally different recent and frozen vegatables and fruits — corn, carrots, broccoli, spinach, peas, inexperienced beans, strawberries and blueberries — and located no constant variations over all between recent and frozen. The vitamin content material was sometimes larger in some frozen meals; frozen broccoli, for instance, had extra riboflavin (a B vitamin) than recent broccoli. However frozen peas had much less riboflavin than recent peas; and frozen corn, inexperienced beans and blueberries had extra vitamin C than their recent counterparts.

The researchers additionally analyzed the quantity of fiber, ranges of phenolic compounds (good sources of antioxidants) and minerals like calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium in the identical eight vegatables and fruits. They discovered no vital variations between the recent and frozen varieties.

Mary Ann Lila, director of the Crops for Human Well being Institute at North Carolina State College in Kannapolis, famous that recent berries lose some vitamins whereas sitting on the shelf, so eat them straight away to get probably the most vitamins. Frozen berries will even deteriorate when stored in a house freezer that's opened and shut typically, she mentioned, so freeze fruits in a deep freezer or on the very again of a kitchen freezer. Search for produce frozen underneath a course of known as "individually fast frozen," or IQF, for the very best quality.