The foods that save me: frozen vegetables
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
Frozen vegies have an image problem.
I spend a good part of my working life encouraging and coaxing people to eat more vegetables.
I regularly suggest frozen vegetables to my time-poor and food-prep phobic clients. But their response is invariably one of horror – as though I’ve uttered something completely inappropriate in the middle of a consultation.
They simply can’t believe their nutritionist has suggested . . . something frozen.
However, during my recent super-busy period, frozen vegies were the third food that saved my diet from being a disaster.
Fresh vs frozen vegetables
Despite their image problem, frozen vegies have a lot going for them and I’ve written about the benefits of fresh and frozen vegetables before.
Simply put, frozen vegies are flash or snap-frozen soon after harvest, when they still contain plenty of nutrients. While some nutrients don’t survive the freezing process, many do.
In contrast, fresh vegetables can lose plenty of nutrients in the journey from harvest to your mouth.
This makes frozen vegetables a valid nutritional choice.
Frozen vegies are a time saver
Having said this, I still prefer to use fresh over frozen. However, I always have some frozen vegetables in the house, because they are a brilliant time saver.
I use them at the end of the week, when the fridge is looking bare. Or when I’m tired and want instant dinner. No washing, peeling or chopping required – simply cut open a bag and empty it into a steamer. A few minutes later and the vegetable component of dinner is sorted.
Over the last few weeks, if I didn’t have frozen vegetables in the house, my diet and health would have suffered.
What’s this all about?
This is the first in a series of posts about the foods which save me when I’m super-busy. It’s a companion piece to my post on how I make it easy to eat well.
20 March, 2008
Comments
Thankfully people in the UK seem to be fairly frozen veg savvy these days and nod knowingly when you suggest that they are a good healthy option, probably because frozen veg is always mentioned in any five-a-day campaign ads. Not that this means that they’re going to buy them and eat them necessarily, but they don’t look horrified either :-)
The veg that are available frozen in the UK tend to be real family favourites too – peas, carrots, sweetcorn which is great.
I always have (among others) frozen whole leaf spinach in the freezer which is perfect for just chucking into pasta sauces and currys.
Now frozen broccoli is another story – that just doesn’t seem to turn out right
I’m a massive fan of frozen spinach, especially when the fresh gets too big and chewy. Also petit pois, but everything else seems not to work for me, especially carrots which seem to become bullet like once frozen.
Fruit, however, I have a freezer drawer full of.
Great series of posts. This suggested me a question: How much nutrients does canned food lose?
Frozen vegies aren’t the same as fresh but I agree they are convenient. I always have frozen peas in the freezer and often frozen spinach – I would like to have more but find that there is not a particularly inspiring mix of other vegies in the freezer section (seems to be much more in the USA from what I see on American blogs)
At the moment I have three packets of vegetables in the freezer
I find the bigger supermarkets have more variety, although it does seem to change a lot. Milly and Johanna – I agree fresh does taste better, but it’s useful to have these as a back up.
Bruno, thanks for your question – I’ll include that in the next Q & A Thursday, which is going to be next week.
Sophie, interesting that the situation is different in the UK. When I do public speaking I can almost guarantee I’ll be asked about frozen vegies. And this is despite extensive marketing by both health authorities and the frozen food industry.
Bruno – I’ve answered your question about canned vegetables here.
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