4 Advice to Choose a Frozen Vegetables In Bulk

Tips for Choosing Frozen Fruits & Veggies

 Fruits and veggies are great ways to get important nutrients, try new tastes, and add low-calorie sides to your meals.

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When fresh isn't available or affordable, frozen is a healthy option.

Look for fresh-frozen fruits and vegetables that have been properly stored, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends. Packages should feel firm. They shouldn't be limp, wet or sweating, which are signs of thawing.

However, when choosing vegetables and fruits sold in bags, you should be able to feel individual pieces, not large solid blocks of food, which could signal that the contents thawed and re-froze. Avoid stained packages or any with visible ice crystals, other signs of defrosting and re-freezing.

Choose plain frozen vegetables without any butter, sauce or added salt. Choose plain frozen fruit without any added sugar. These are also the best options when adding the food to a recipe.

Look for U.S. grade standards that measure quality. These are optional, so they're not always printed on the package. But when they are, Grade A fancy vegetables have the most color and tenderness. Grade B aren't quite as perfect and have a more mature, slightly different taste. Grade C are less uniform in color and flavor but are fine for soups and stews.

Grade A fruits are near picture-perfect. Grade B, the most common fruit grade, signals very good quality. Grade C fruits may be less uniform and not as sweet, but they're fine for cooked dishes and purees.

At home, store your frozen foods at zero degrees or lower. If you buy bulk sizes, take only what you need out of the package and put the rest back in the freezer before the food starts to thaw. When you'll be using an entire package, it's fine to thaw the food in its original package in the fridge or, for faster thawing, in a bowl of cold water on the counter on in the microwave according to package directions.

Frozen veggies are usually blanched before freezing to better hold their color and flavor. Whether you're eating them plain or using them in a recipe, this makes your overall cooking time shorter than if you were using fresh vegetables.

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Fruit is washed before freezing, so there's little or no prep work needed. Toss still-frozen chunks right into the blender for a frosty smoothie. While you can microwave frozen fruit if you're in a hurry, thawing it in the fridge or a bowl of cold water will better preserve its appearance.

There are plenty of fabulous frozen vegetables to choose from. HFG senior nutritionist Rose Carr looks at what&#;s available.

Healthy veges

There are so many reasons to eat more vegetables. Higher intakes of vegetables have been shown to significantly reduce the risk of a number of cancers. One of the 10 recommendations from the World Cancer Research Fund report is to eat mostly plant foods, aiming for at least five serves (or a minimum of 400g) of non-starchy vegetables and fruit each day. Higher intakes of vegetables are also thought to help protect us from coronary heart disease, stroke and cataracts. Many other health conditions appear to be improved with higher intakes of vegetables. The list keeps growing the more we know.

Colour your plate

The different colours in our vegetables and fruit indicate the presence of different phytochemicals. It is thought the benefits of diets higher in vegetables and fruit come not only from the amount of vitamins, minerals and fibre they provide but also from the synergistic effect of these hundreds of different phyto-chemicals &#; a great reason to not only increase our vegetable intake but to aim to include a colourful variety.

Are frozen veges as good as fresh?

We admit it&#;s hard to beat vegetables straight from the garden for taste and texture, but it is reassuring to know that frozen veges are not only convenient and practical, they are also nutritious.

Freezing vegetables in itself doesn&#;t alter their nutrition, and frozen veges are processed pretty quickly after picking.

Before freezing vegetables, they must first be blanched, which can affect nutrients, although most are blanched using steam rather than water (which has less effect). Fresh vegetables can also lose nutrients during distribution and storage when the temperature may not be constant and there can be some physical damage. So on balance, there is little difference between fresh and frozen when it comes to nutrition.

Potassium

Another reason vegetables are so important is they are the best source of potassium in our diets. Most us get much more sodium (from salt) than is recommended and as a result many of us have high blood pressure, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Increasing potassium in our diets can help lessen the effect of sodium on blood pressure.

Tips

• Aim to buy frozen vegetables towards the end of your shop. Get frozen vegetables into your freezer as quickly as possible to avoid partial defrosting. Use a chiller bag when it&#;s warm.
• Remember, frozen vegetables have been partially cooked before being frozen. So when adding frozen vegetables to a hot dish, add veges straight from frozen. Don&#;t defrost them first as they may end up soggy in the dish.

How to choose

• We recommend choosing vegetables with nothing added.
• Aim to include a range of different-coloured vegetables every day. It&#;s OK to have the basics you know you are always going to use but also aim for variety.
• A reasonable approximation for one vege serve is 80-100g, ie. about half a cup.

Ideas for using

Use frozen vegetables to add more veges to your day:

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