Should I Buy Fresh or Frozen Fruits and Veggies?

Frozen, the movie, is so “in” right now. When it comes to food, though, fresh is the buzzword everybody uses.  But is fresh really best?

I want to bring frozen veggies and fruits back into style.  As a dietitian, I love them.  Here’s why:

1. Less food waste. Did you know that a third to half of all food ends up in the garbage? I hate it when I open the fridge to find my berries all mouldy. They’re perfectly fine one evening and then I wake up the next morning to mould. When your fruit is frozen you never have to worry about using it up before it goes bad!
2. Convenience. With frozen fruits and veggies, you can always have them stocked in your freezer. The busyness of life might prevent you from getting to the grocery store as often as you’d like, but with frozen on hand you have no excuse to skip the veggies. AND…. those veggies come pre chopped. All you have to do is heat and serve!
3. Higher nutrient density. Light, air, and time are a water soluble vitamin’s worst enemies. “Fresh” fruits and veggies have to be picked, transported to a warehouse, stored, transported to a grocery store, displayed, purchased, transported home, then stored until eaten.  This will expose the fruit to light and air much more than fruit that is picked, and immediately frozen. Freezing locks in the nutrients.
4. Out of season availability. You’ll pay an arm and a leg for fresh raspberries in winter. Buying frozen allows you to enjoy them all year long at a reasonable price.
5. Variety. If you don’t have 19 kids and counting you might find it difficult to keep a variety of fruits and vegetables on hand without succumbing to problem #1: food waste. But you can keep as much variety of frozen fruits and veggies as your freezer can hold! It’s awesome to have a nice variety of veggies in a stirfy, which is possible when you buy a mixed bag of frozen.

Bonus reason: no more crying.  This one is quite specific to onions.  

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