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The Advantages Of Frozen Produce

You only use what you need at the time and the rest can remain frozen. If you think of how quickly produce spoils I'd be pretty sure you've thrown away your fair share of it over the years.
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Stack of frozen vegetables
Nicholas Eveleigh via Getty Images
Stack of frozen vegetables

With the ever increasing cost of food in Canada, people are starting to have to neglect healthier foods in order to save those precious dollars.

As it's been reported there are people having to bypass fresh produce in favour of frozen fruit, juices and other alternatives. This may seem like a step-down but let me show a few ways how frozen fruit and veg can actually have some positive benefits in your diet and health.

Fresh Produce Is Generally Never Locally Grown

Fresh fruit and vegetables are always going to be paramount in the diet but unless you are going to local farmers markets, or growing your own, the produce you find in a grocery store is pretty much guaranteed to not even be from Canada. South America, The United States and Mexico are some of the big suppliers of our produce and this is where frozen may have an advantage.

Say that you buy some organically grown fruit but it comes from California, it definitely is a healthier alternative but you need to look at the nutrient depletion that has happened in the food. Fresh produce begins to lose nutrients the moment it is picked. Add on to that the processing, shipping, transit, delivery and shelf stocking and you are looking at quite a long time from when it was harvested until when you eat it.

The Place For Frozen Produce

Enter in the frozen equivalent. Frozen fruit and veg generally have a flash freezing process applied to them not long after harvesting. This means it will contain a larger majority of the nutrients that haven't had time to deplete from its long voyage to your dinner table. This frozen produce might come from far away too but it's almost like eating local when you consider that it is frozen early on.

I'm also a big fan of buying the store brand generic version of frozen fruit and veg as opposed to commercial varieties where you are paying for advertisements and packaging that are reflected in the price. The same freezing process is applied to the generic variety and seems a smart way to save money.

Waste Not Want Not

Here is the other beauty of frozen produce, the fact that you only use what you need at the time and the rest can remain frozen. If you think of how quickly produce spoils I'd be pretty sure you've thrown away your fair share of it over the years. If we're looking at saving money this is another no brainer.

The average household in North America is throwing away around 215 kg of food per year which can add up to roughly $2000 a year. David Suzuki points this out as being around30 per cent of our food. In Toronto, it is 275 Kg being thrown out each year. Frozen produce can help solve this problem as there is virtually no wastage.

Don't Be Afraid To Go Frozen

Don't worry I won't be singing "Let it Go" here but like every young girl in the world you want to embrace frozen. In a time where money is tight and food costs are soaring don't feel you are neglecting your health by buying frozen produce. You are still getting the nutritional benefits that come from fruits and vegetables but helping the bottom line at the same time.

That's pretty win-win.

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