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 Many frozen vegetables can be seen on the shelves of the shops. These are vegetable mixes, and french fries, and spinach, and corn kernels, and beans, and cabbage, and much more. And if such products were previously treated with caution, now they are safely bought in large quantities. Scientists and time have proven that cold is almost no harm to such products. Changes in them can occur when air enters. But most packages are airtight and therefore no air can enter.
And freezing vegetables with the help of modern technologies allows you to preserve more vitamins and minerals in products than when preserving. Take, for example, vitamin C. Drying has a very bad effect on its content - in this case, up to 80% of the vitamin can be lost. Canning is able to preserve vitamin C somewhat better, but at the same time it is also detrimental to this vitamin. Freezing is the most gentle for him. After freezing, vegetables retain up to 80% of vitamin C.
You should also take into account the fact that many vegetables that can be seen on our counters out of season are brought from Turkey, Africa, Spain, Italy and other countries. They can lose most of their vitamins and other nutrients upon delivery. They also contain preservatives added to vegetables to preserve their appearance. There are also many imported vegetables and pesticides. For example, frozen vegetables can be kept cold, while imported vegetables require pesticides. Vegetables are frozen after harvest, while retaining all their useful properties.
Frozen food is usually packed in bags. The weight of a standard package is about 450 g, sometimes more. The packages will not take up much space in the refrigerator, but there will always be healthy and tasty products on your table. Please note that the storage of frozen vegetables must not be violated, and after they are thawed, the food should not be re-frozen. You can find out about the storage conditions of vegetables on the package.
In general, it is very easy to freeze food, but at home it needs to be done very quickly. The thing is that the nutritional and taste properties of frozen foods are quickly lost.
The industry is now using "shock freezing", because low temperatures affect vegetables very quickly. The products are first prepared and then sent under the influence of cold air. As a result, individual pieces or vegetables do not have time to stick to each other, and are covered with an ice crust. After that, the effect of the cold continues, as a result of which the inside of the vegetables is frozen. When the temperature of vegetables reaches –18 C, the product can be considered ready and can be packaged. The main advantages of shock freezing are that it is convenient to pack food in this case. Also in this case, the speed of their preparation is achieved. With all these benefits, the structure and appearance of vegetables remains natural.
By the way, a few words about quality. Frozen foods are unique in their own way. When buying, people pay attention to both the name of the product and the manufacturer. Also, buyers look to ensure that a minimum of ice remains on the package, and proportions are observed (in the event that it is a mixture of different products). The only thing is that these packages are usually opaque, so it is impossible to evaluate products according to these parameters in advance. But when you come home, you can carefully examine and even taste the contents of the package. So in the end you will have an impression of a particular company and its product.
Mikhailova O.
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