Its probably been asked many times already. But what about frozen foods? are some of these flash cooked before being frozen? How much vitality is lost from processing and freezing? I have been craving peas, and pretty much the only ones available right now are frozen. I found a place that had immature peas in the pod, but I can't always go where they are. I also have been craving cherries, also not especially in season right now. 'Wild' blueberries are available frozen, and for some reason they often taste better and have more color than non-frozen from peru or what not....

I know that fresh and unfrozen must be better, and it should make up the bulk of ones diet, but what if you body has other plans for what seems more appealing?

You would have to write to each company and ask them whether their product(whatever it is) is cooked/irradiated in processing. Good luck : )

I would imagine that most veggies are "blanched" (immersed in boiling water for a minute or two.) so they will freeze well.Obviously frozen peas are fully cooked,otherwise they would be very hard.
I think fruits and berries are frozen totally raw,
JMO. Just my opinion

Vinny



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2009 03:38PM by eaglefly.

I have never seen fresh peas (not counting snow pea pods) in grocery stores. Perhaps the only way to get fresh peas is to grow them yourself. It would be worth it though because baby peas are delish and not hard at all like dried peas are.

A family story is how my mother and her two sisters loved eating raw peas when they were children. My grandfather always wondered why his pea vines looked so healthy, but had no no mature pods. Then, one day he looked in the ditch behind the fence on which the peas were growing and saw that it was filled with empty pods. Mystery solved!


My favorite raw vegan

Raw peas can be found in bulk bins in certain health food stores.
Soak them and sprout them,and you have a very fine food chock full of good stuff.

Vinny

Wouldn't you know... I saw fresh peas in the pod for the first time in the grocery today after saying that they were never available (except snow pea pods which are more for the pods than the peas). I was thrilled. If frozen peas are blanched, which I think is likely, I'm glad to find another source. Cracking open the pods is like breaking into some exotic delicacy.


My favorite raw vegan

I hope you don't mind one more comment about peas. I thawed some frozen peas and compared their taste to fresh peas. They tasted entirely different. I'm sure that the ones that had been frozen were not raw.


My favorite raw vegan

Most frozen fruit isn't raw and the vegetables aren't at all. Cascadian Farms fruit is the only raw one I know of.

Simple Raw Recipes & Health Tips

"I think fruits and berries are frozen totally raw"

If they are labeled "quick frozen" or sometimes "frozen" then this is probably true according to codexalimentarius, in this case for blueberries--

"Quick frozen blueberries are the product prepared from fresh, clean, sound, ripe and stemmed blueberries of firm texture, conforming to the characteristics of Vaccinium corymbosum L.2 3 Vaccinium angustifolium AIT. and Vaccinium ashei READE, and which are packed with or without a dry sugar or a sugar syrup and frozen in an appropriate manner.
2.2 Process Definition
Quick frozen blueberries are the product subjected to a freezing process in appropriate equipment and complying with the conditions laid down hereafter. This freezing operation shall be carried out in such a way that the range of temperature of maximum crystallization is passed quickly. The quick freezing process shall not be regarded as complete unless and until the product temperature has reached -18°C (0°F) at the thermal centre after thermal stabilization. The recognized practice of repacking quick frozen products under controlled conditions is permitted."

[www.codexalimentarius.net]

At no point in the document do they mention heat, just that the berries be basically clean and sound.

Certain peas are done the same way as far as I can tell--

"6.1.1 The designation "peas", except that where peas are presented in conformity with 2.4.1.2 the designation shall be "garden peas" or the equivalent designation used in the country in which the product is intended to be sold. The words "quick frozen" shall also appear on the label, except that the term "frozen"2 may be applied in countries where this term is customarily used for describing the product processed in accordance with sub-section 2.2 of the standard."

[www.codexalimentarius.net]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2009 11:28AM by loeve.

Alright, the label "quick frozen" applies to various processes which may be raw or include blanching, scalding or heating depending on the circumstances--

"4.2 PROCESSING BEFORE FREEZING
Raw materials may be processed in many ways before freezing, e.g. cleaning, sorting, cutting, slicing,
blanching, conditioning, ageing, scalding, filleting and heating. Whether such processes should be regarded
as CCPs (critical control points) depends on the type of raw materials and the actual conditions, especially on how much time the
raw materials and the resulting product spend at temperatures that could result in pathogen growth. It is
particularly important that the time spent in the critical temperature zone (i.e. between 10°C and 60°C) be as
short as possible. Consideration should also be given to any of these processes as to whether or not they
should be regarded as an essential quality provision.
Blanching is often used in the production of frozen vegetables and other products to inactivate enzymes that
would cause quality problems (taste, colour) during frozen storage. The blanching schedule should be
determined to ensure the desired quality outcome, and may be an essential quality provision."

[www.codexalimentarius.net]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2009 12:31PM by loeve.

According to the frozen food industry there may be good reason why frozen foods may "seem more appealing", like wild blueberries that are allowed to ripen on the vine; fruits and veggies in general that are vine ripened and flash frozen within several hours of picking--

[www.allbusiness.com]

Frozen peas are probably blanched but picked at their peak creating a tradeoff between loss of enzymes, flavor and variety.

Generally, frozen vegetables are blanched before freezing and frozen fruits are not. I think that if the fruits were blanched you could easily tell because they would look wilty. If you've ever cooked fruits, you know that they get soft very fast compared to vegetables and frozen wilty fruit would look awful.

As far as nutrition fresh fruit will be loosing nutrition as it is transported and sits on the shelf. It might even be picked slightly green to compensate for the transportation time. Frozen fruit is likely picked ripe and frozen very fast so it isn't loosing nutrition over time, the bigest nutrition lost is the freezing process.

This is an interesting chart from the book, The nutrition handbook for food processors By C. J. K. Henry, C. Chapman, showing the nutrition loss of ascorbate over 12 months at various storage temperatures. It seems like the colder it is, the less nutrients are lost. At -55C there was hardly any loss but at -20C there was nearly 50% loss:
[books.google.com]

Thank you all for your input. The craving for frozen food seems to be passing, especially since the local coop has a recent arrival of some pink navel oranges that are extremely good. I also tried some 'black kale' which tasted way better than I ever remembered. I can remember trying kale years ago and not particularly liking it. Man has my taste changed! Its a totally different vegetable from peas, but its along the lines of my cravings. Actually it might be more on spot because its fresh, alive and never frozen. I got some more frozen 'boreal wild blueberries' however. I think those will probably remain appealing, until I can find higher quality blueberries. I have never seen fresh wild blueberries in the market place.