Frozen Vegetables Are Picked at Peak Ripeness
Fruits and vegetables that will be frozen are generally picked at peak ripeness, when they’re the most nutritious. Fresh produce sold in grocery stores, on the other hand, is often harvested before it fully matures to allow time for ripening during transportation. This gives them less time to develop a full range of vitamins, minerals and natural antioxidants. So while you might assume that bright, colorful fresh vegetables are bursting with nutrients, they may actually have been picked too early to reach their full nutritional potential.
They’re Frozen Within Hours of Harvest
Once harvested, the vegetables are often washed, blanched, cut, frozen and packaged within a few hours. This speed matters more than you’d think. Frozen vegetables are picked and frozen within hours of being harvested, so they’re going to retain a lot more of their nutrition that way. Meanwhile, fresh vegetables can spend days or even weeks traveling from farm to distribution center to store to your refrigerator, losing nutrients all along the way.
Fresh Produce Loses Nutrients During Storage
That bag of spinach sitting in your crisper drawer isn’t as healthy as it was three days ago. The study found that fresh produce loses more nutritional value the longer it’s stored, and after 5 days, the frozen produce was more nutritious than the fresh produce. Fruits and vegetables can lose up to half of some nutrients within a couple of days of being harvested, with green peas losing about half of their vitamin C within the first two days after harvest. It’s a sobering reality that challenges everything we’ve been told about fresh being best.
Blanching Preserves Quality, Not Destroys It
Many people worry that the blanching process damages vegetables before freezing. Blanching stops enzyme actions which can cause loss of flavor, color and texture, and helps to remove dirt and microorganisms, brightens the color and helps retard loss of vitamins. While blanching prior to freezing does lead to minor losses in some nutrients, particularly vitamin C, after that initial processing, frozen vegetables retain their nutritional value for months. The brief heat treatment actually protects vegetables better than leaving them raw in transit for weeks.
Some Frozen Vegetables Have More Nutrients Than Fresh
Here’s where it gets really interesting. Research from UC Davis revealed that frozen produce is nutritionally equivalent, and often superior, to its fresh-stored counterpart, with the vitamin C content of frozen corn, green beans and blueberries significantly higher than their fresh-stored counterparts. Frozen broccoli, for example, was found to have more riboflavin than fresh broccoli. Let that sink in. The frozen aisle might actually be more nutritious than the produce section.
Frozen Vegetables Dramatically Cut Food Waste
Analysis of multiple studies affirmed that, in general, frozen foods are wasted less than their fresh counterparts at both the retail and consumer levels. Think about it. How many times have you thrown away wilted lettuce or moldy berries? Roughly 40% of food wasted by households is fruits and vegetables. Eighty-three percent of consumers reported that frozen fruits and vegetables help them to reduce food waste and save money due to the key attributes of frozen such as a longer shelf life and ability to only prepare what you need.
They’re More Cost-Effective Than Fresh
Fresh vegetables aren’t just more wasteful. They’re more expensive too. The supply chain for fresh produce requires rapid shipping, careful handling, and premium pricing to offset inevitable losses. Frozen produce has the advantage of time on its side, and since it’s cheaper and easier to ship, store, and sell, those savings all get passed on to you, the consumer. Plus you’re not paying for produce that ends up rotting in your fridge. Smart shopping means understanding true cost per serving actually consumed.
Nutritional Content Stays Stable for Months
Studies found that folate levels, or B vitamins, in frozen vs. fresh vegetables had negligible differences, even after several months in the freezer. This long-term stability is something fresh produce simply cannot match. A study that looked at 20 vegetables found that minerals and fiber remained generally stable after blanching and freezing. Your frozen peas from three months ago might be healthier than the fresh ones you bought yesterday and let sit for a week.
Fresh Vegetables Travel for Days Before Reaching You
In the US, fruits and vegetables may spend anywhere from 3 days to several weeks in transit before arriving at a distribution center. Sometimes fresh vegetables you buy in the grocery store have traveled from a very long distance, and after they get picked and packed and transported over the course of several days, they lose some of their nutrients. That “farm fresh” label is more marketing than reality when vegetables cross multiple state lines.
Most Research Shows Frozen Equals or Beats Fresh
In the majority of comparisons between nutrients within the categories of fresh, frozen, and fresh-stored, the findings showed no significant differences in assessed vitamin contents, and in the cases of significant differences, frozen produce outperformed fresh-stored more frequently than fresh-stored outperformed frozen. When considering the refrigerated storage to which consumers may expose their fresh produce prior to consumption, the findings do not support the common belief that fresh food has significantly greater nutritional value than its frozen counterpart. The science is clear, even if our assumptions aren’t.
So what do you think? Does this change how you’ll shop for vegetables going forward?
