are frozen veges better then non frozen?

**rordogs** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 12:25am

i ask because when trying to add up my vitamin and mineral totals wikipedia and nutritiondata.org have two different sets of stats though the one i looked up on nutritiondata.org was for frozen foods and i'm not sure about the ones of wiki.

for example

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/v...roducts/2526/2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peas

each have very very different amounts of vitamin a, a vitamin i'm trying to get more of so not to rely on vitamin sups (by adding in more veges, something that i was currently lacking).

i've read some stuff on the internet that because they are frozen after picked frozen veges retain more nutrients instead of loosing them as they wait and travel from farm to store to stomach. but i can't find any concensus on the issue.

anyone know? thanks.

**sochin101** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 5:40am

That's the general gist.
I think it's a pretty well-known and proven nutritional fact that as soon as they are picked, the cells start to decay, losing nutrients and phytonutrients.

Freezing immediately after picking can help to arrest this cell decay.

I'm unsure how quick a lot of stuff gets frozen, so I'm not certain that just buying frozen veggies will make a lot of difference. If you have stuff sat in a refrigerated lorry for a couple of days before being frozen, then you'd probably be better off buying market goods.

By the way, almost as important is how you cook the veggies.
Boiling them to a pulp means you're cooking out most of the 'goodness', for instance.

**retrograde** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 6:07am

Plus, blergh, frozen veggies taste yuck.

If you're trying to get more veggies in your diet but aren't usually a fan, I would suggest that buying fresh will probably result in much higher consumption (and thus more nutrients) because a) you can eat them raw and at any time and b) they taste better. Frozen ones you can only eat after you've thawed and cooked them for a while, and then usually added a bunch of extras to give them some actual flavour.

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 6:10am

Yes, frozen food lose nutrients after a while.

No, it's not important to the point of worrying about it. What is important is he type of food, be it fresh or frozen, as well as the amount of calories you have earned to eat per day (yep, you gotta earn your calories.)

You want to add up your vitamins and minerals? Then eat more (either frozen or a mix of frozen and fresh whenever possible) and take a multivitamin.

In other words, be pragmatic.

**meataxe** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 2:05pm

If frozen means you eat your veggies because it's more convenient, then frozen is better. I'd say that is more important than trace levels of micronutrients.

**TheRuss** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 2:33pm

Originally Posted by rordogs

each have very very different amounts of vitamin a, a vitamin i'm trying to get more of so not to rely on vitamin sups (by adding in more veges, something that i was currently lacking).

You're trying to get more Vitamin A? Why?

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 2:59pm

I never understood people's phobia when it comes to multivitamins.

Yes, our ancestors got by without them when they were killing hairy animals with pointy sticks or when Grog told Guck'tlk'gka "holy fucking **** dude, if I put this seed on the ground instead of munching it, it will grow into a plant that will give me more seeds!!(more than 1 - they didn't have numbers back then)."

They were close to nature and mother earth and all that ****. But they were usually malnourished, deficient in one nutrient or another, full of stomach parasites, and died by the age of 30 or something like that.

Science is good. Trying to eat good foods is good. Turning one back's to supplements is not - if that's the case, let's abandon penicilin and soap!!! Get your multis!

[gratuitous rant directed to the close-to-nature hippies]

***JohnnyCache*** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 4:11pm

Most of our food is so saturated with extra vitamins and **** and we just plain eat so much that I there really aren't very many people in the US who are actually deficient in anything. There's nothing wrong with a multivitamin, but anything more - mega-doses of vitamin e, that kind of thing - it's just going in your toilet.

I take joint **** and fish oil, and that's about it.

I'd tend to take the non-wiki figures over the wiki figures if there's a discrepency.

Also, the best veggies I've found so far in the frozen market are the new steam-in-the-bag kind they've been doing - if you get the right ones (avoid the ones with any extra flavoring or sauce) they have the taste and texture of steamed veggies out of the microwave.

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 1/31/2009 9:39pm

Diving into the deep end here.....

Most of the fresh veggies I eat are the type I plan to eat raw. I also eat a lot of fruit.

On the other hand, opening a can of black-eyed peas, corn, beans, etc. ptovides a quick snack and no clean-up other than a spoon. This is usually later at night or coming home for lunch (the wife does cook and cooks well).

Somewhere in the back of my feeble mind is the thought that canned vegetables are usually picked and cooked at the prime - not green and left to ripen during shipment / storage.

Any truth to this?