What is Better? Fresh or Frozen Food?
/
Photo by Marta Dzedyshko from Pexels
By: Mark Sisson
In the hierarchy of vegetables, the best choices are fresh, in-season, and local.
Realistically, though, that’s not always going to happen. For one thing, some of you live in climates where access to a variety of local and in-season vegetables isn’t a thing. Likewise, your neighborhood might have a dearth of supermarkets, so you have to make a trek to find fresh produce.
Although home-grown is the best of the best, I know that saying, “Just grow your own!” is presumptuous on a lot of levels. Assuming that you have the space and resources to plant a garden, time is a big consideration. Plus, once they’re grown, preparing fresh vegetables takes more time than preparing frozen or canned, which are already washed and chopped for you.
All this is to say, I’m sure many of you find yourself turning to frozen and canned vegetables—as well as fruit, seafood, and meat—for reasons of availability and convenience. You might wonder if you are sacrificing any health benefits or if I’m giving you the side-eye for eating vegetables that aren’t farm-fresh. Let me put those concerns to rest.
Fresh vs. Frozen Fruits and Vegetables
Are Frozen and Canned Foods Inherently Less Primal?
If you’ve been avoiding frozen or canned foods because you think you’ll have to turn in your Primal card, be assured that isn’t the case. Grok would not have frozen or canned foods, that’s true. Food preservation is nothing new, though. Our ancestors dried, smoked, salted, and fermented foods for “shelf life.”
Anyway, just because a technology is new does not mean it’s “un-Primal.” I am not now, nor have I ever been, opposed to using modern methods of food preservation and storage that make it safer or more convenient to eat healthy foods. I like safety and convenience.
That said, I have historically avoided canned vegetables in the store due to concerns over BPA in the can linings. (Home-canned in jars is different, of course. I’m all for home canning.) Since people sounded the alarm about BPA in the past decade, industry reports suggest a significant number of manufacturers have moved away from BPA-lined cans, but not all of them.
I still strongly favor frozen over industrially canned vegetables. If nothing else, the taste and texture are usually superior. Nutritionally, though, the data show that frozen and canned are comparable overall.
Read the rest of the article here:
