Is it healthy to include frozen fruits and vegetables in the diet?

A healthy diet has to be rich in fruits and vegetables but do they have to be fresh? There is a lot of talk about frozen foods losing vitamins and minerals but now we will explain what is true in this statement and what are the advantages of consuming frozen fruits and vegetables in front of fresh foods.

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Why include frozen fruit and vegetables in your weekly menu

We can not always buy daily and yet, it would be ideal to eat fresh fruit and vegetables every day. What happens when you buy a lot of fruit and vegetables in your weekly shopping? What you will not always be able to eat it fresh, it will take several days until you can consume it with its consequent loss of nutrients and, on many occasions, you're probably wasting food.

Also keep in mind that not all fruits and vegetables are seasonal and you will not be able to use them at their optimum ripeness, but if they are frozen you will be able to enjoy them throughout the year.

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Frozen foods suffer less deterioration since they freeze at their maximum nutritional value, this means that you will benefit from all their properties at the moment you decide to consume those fruits or vegetables.

Is there loss of nutrients in frozen foods?

If you think that frozen fruits and vegetables have fewer vitamins than fresh ones, you are finding that they have as many or more nutrients than fresh ones. The fact that they can have more vitamins than fresh ones is that Frozen vegetables and fruits undergo this process at their time of greatest nutritional value In front of the natural days that can happen from the collection of fresh foods until they really arrive in your shopping cart, that time is a loss of healthy properties that frozen fruits and vegetables do not suffer.

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Fruits are frozen directly but vegetables are usually scalding to preserve their color, this does cause the food to have a loss of up to 50% of Vitamin C that at first may seem an outrageous but bear in mind that, as we mentioned before, the vegetables are picked at their peak when they have an extraordinary density of nutrients, however the fresh vegetable is collected a little before that point of maturity (it has less nutrients then), to avoid that it deteriorates in the transport and later storage until the sale to the consumer. This loss of vitamins that causes scalding is compensated with the lower nutritional value of fresh food that is collected with up to 50% less nutrients Not being at its best in maturity, then the healthy benefits of both products would be very similar.

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Exposure to oxygen, transport time, storage process, refrigeration, etc … to which fresh food is subjected, they are agents that suppose a loss of nutrients that the frozen foods do not suffer Do not you think that fresh food has such a big advantage over frozen food?

Frozen or packaged?

Here we do find a big difference in the ingredients. While fruits and vegetables are often frozen without adding preservatives or additives, canned or packaged products yes they usually contain unhealthy ingredients such as excess sodium, sugar, preservatives, and other elements not recommended in front of most frozen fruits and vegetables. In any case, always look at the ingredients of the food because sometimes you can take surprises.

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Fantastic allies in the kitchen

Frozen fruits and vegetables are foods that make weekly menus much easier and faster. You will be able to have at hand vegetables and fruits at your point to make scrambled, creams, stews, smoothies, ice cream, soups … It is the easiest way to consume healthy recipes every day without having to spend the morning in the market, also benefiting from the maximum nutritional power of the food. If you were not a fan of frozen foods, maybe it's time to incorporate them into your diet.