What are the consequences of freezing raw fruit and vegetables? Does it lose any nutritional value? I left whole watermelon in my car overnight below freezing temperature. If I put it back in room temperature for a few days will it continue to ripen, or simply rot?

One it freezes, its dead. Perhaps you can make a watermelon sorbet from it

Not from what ive read, but this isn't a topic i know alot about?, but frozen food generally is meant to retain its nutrients where as fresh degrades daily?

I have heard it both ways on this one...so I don't know for sure. I freeze produce for use in smoothies/sorbets. I believe that the enzymes remain intact, at least I lean that way judging from what I have read.

i buy a lot of frozen food but i never freeze anything that i haven't bought already frozen.

freezing is great when the produce is frozen immediately after being picked and defrosted immediately before consumption. this way you lock in the freshness and don't lose any of it during lengthy transportation.

in other words it makes sense to freeze stuff if you can't immediately consume it - otherwise it doesn't make sense - just eat it.

also defrosted stuff blends extremely well, but probably isn't well suited for anything else.

i tend to buy frozen the stuff that goes bad quickly - namely berries.

You familiar with the kirlian photography stuff? I think of freezing fruit this way:

It has life force while it's alive. When you put it in the freezer, or the blender, or the dehydrator, or whatever, you mix up all its parts and electrical aura or whatever that aura is...

and it fades. Slowly or quickly depending on how you do it. I bet you take a piece of kale, freeze it for 4 hours and then take a kirlian picture, theres probably some energy left in the kale...

but you blend a piece of kale to smithereens and 4 hours later, you wont get the same electrical field if you took a picture of the 4 hour old smoothie.

Even if the enzymes are intact, it is the enzymes PLUS the electromagnetospirituo life force stuff that gets you well and keeps you well. Its eating LIVING things.

So if you freeze something, how long do you think it can survive your freezer and still take a good kirlian picture? I guestimate, and try to eat foods that are as Kirlian-ley *bright* as possible.

And I'll eat a leftover salad the next day, but I know it's not as bright. I figure intact enzymes housed in no-longer-living matter is better than cooked, but not exactly the same as fresh and whole. I feel as though the faster I eat something that I've destroyed in the blender, the better. But no harm done if the non-living matter i've eaten is at least raw. I think of it as eating not only the enzymes but also the "lifeforce energy", whatever that is.

Peace,
Sue

Minerals are not affected by freezing and that's what is most lacking in our diet. Vitamins are easy to get, enzymes are plentiful in living foods like sprouts etc, water is in all juicy foods. It's minerals that you need to make sure you get enough of.

As for the original post though, a frozen watermelon will not continue to ripen after it's been frozen, it's dead.

Agree with coco!

I think it's dead in the sense that it will not ripen and come back to life and grow.. but I don't believe it loses much nutritional value based on other things I have read.

Yep, it will no longer ripen.

But as for lost nutrition, probably not that much. Many living things naturally undergo a freezing process during the winter and still survive and are nutritionally find. Many nuts and seeds, and some plants can undergo the freezing process with no harm at all.

Not a melon though, not any fruit or veg.

I've been thinking about nuts, seeds and grains and if a freezer would be an alright place to store them. Would they stay alive, would they still sprout after...

nuts and seeds and grains , quite often sproout after beeing frozen ..i think for the most part its part of their natural cycle .. in fact some seeds and nuts may NOT sprout unless previously frozen for a short period ..

i try not to keep so many nuts/seeds tho for more then say 2 months .. that would be a typicaly long enough winter season for most cold weather nuts and seeds

as far as whole fruits and veg's .. there is litterally no chance you could take a leaf cutting from a green leafy matter that has been frozen and get it to root so i would say that is as dead as it gets .. it does as coco says remain minerally intact and would nourish the soil as compost or a frozen smoothie ...same with frozen fruits .. no chance of getting it to sprout or root once frozen

... there is a fine line between ripening off the vine and decomposition

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2011 07:06PM by Jgunn.

Freezing destroy some nutrients.
[www.rawfoodexplained.com]

Jodi, I've been thinking about ordering nuts etc in bulk to save money but it's not that much of a savings if they get freezer burn . Best to plant some sunflowers this summer and hope the squirrels don't get them before we do.

I wouldn't thaw frozen foods personally, we use frozen berries in smoothies and make banana nice cream with frozen 'nanas so there isn't any time for anything to oxidize as it's consumed fairly quickly. I don't think there's much more damage done by freezing than by blending or chewing which also bursts cells and begins the breakdown of nutrients. Food starts to die and decompose as soon as it's plucked or falls from the mother plant but it doesn't become nutritionally void or compromised straight away. And freezing is no more damaging to food than dehydrating. Add to that the fact that fresh picked foods that are frozen or dehydrated by you are bound to be fresher and more nutrient dense than something that traveled many miles to get to you. Until we revert to the nomad life and travel seasonally to find fresh food to eat all year long, freezing and dehydrating are viable dietary options IMO.

coco i have an unlimited supply of walnuts from a huge tree on the farm if you want me to box mail you a bunch .. and im gonna gurrilla plant some hazlenut./filberts out there wetherr the hubbys dad likes it or not

saving your sunflowers from the squirrels i found was not too hard .. i yoinked some old pantyhose over the heads that i could and hung shiny pie plates .. they got a few but got the message

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Does that work with the pantyhose? Those buggers took the entire heads off our last fleurs, the dirty rats.

I love that walnuts grow in BC. We can get hazelnuts here but that's about it I think. Walnuts are good brain food!

yea the panty hose worked great with the pie plates .... i think you need both .. the pantyhose make the seeds harder to steal (not impossible just harder) and the pie plates are a flashy flippy diversion they dont like the flashy shiny if you tie the tin pie plates just under the flower head they flop around enough to make it difficult to get to the seeds .. they really flutter in the slightest breeze

and of course i like to plant a few extra just to get stolen .. all is fair .. 1 for the squirrel, 1 for the crow, 1 for the gopher and 1 to grow <3

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2011 12:49AM by Jgunn.

Thanks for the informative replies. I'm eating the thawed watermelon now. It sat in my car (below freezing) overnight, then sat at room temperature for 4 days. It's not bad, but it tastes more bland and mushy than the watermelon which was never frozen.

go go gadget blender / Sue - I LOVVVVVVVED what you posted there!