Freezing food

(Vic) #1

What are the positive and negative effects of freezing food ?

Its preserving food, yes, a good thing.
Kills parasites. Makes food cheaper.

There must be downsides? What about nutrients ?

(Ken) #2

Not really any major downsides, except not quite as flavorful as Fresh. The important thing is to package it properly, and that means using a process that excludes as much air as possible. The major upside is the ability to buy larger amounts economically, and to preserve foods you grow or produce yourself.

(FRANK) #3

Makes my life simpler. Make dishes on weekends and freeze them for during the week. No downsides.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

Freezing can damage the texture of some items. And, of course, you need power of some sort to run the compressor. But freezing is definitely a lot less work than canning or smoking.

#5

Not every items handle freezing well - some items are fine but they change so their use is limited but that’s it. I see zero downside for the items that handle freezing well, it even enhances flavor sometimes for some strange reason :smiley:

I use freezing and canning. Both takes almost no work and the latter uses energy when canning only (so power shortage later is no problem) and I have more space for jars anymore… But canning changes the food more as it stops being raw (if it was raw to begin with, of course… we can freeze and pressure can cooked food, after all), it actually changes its nutritional value, not only the texture and I usually use it for different items (or for different persons. we have this with fruit… I have a fruit garden, it’s a huge amount of fruit, I must preserve it).
Canned stuff sometimes spoils, extremely rarely in my household but it does happen.

I doubt meat changes significantly sitting in the freezer for some weeks or months… And I mostly keep that there.

(Jack Bennett) #6

I don’t think it has a big impact on nutrients. Certainly less impact compared to (e.g.) canning or other heat treatments. My understanding is that fresh-frozen vegetables (i.e. vegetables that were frozen right when they were fresh) lose little or no vitamins.

If the food is improperly stored or packaged, freezer burn might be an issue.

(Laurie) #7

The main concern might be bacteria. Some bacteria can survive freezing, and can multiply quickly during thawing, because of latent heat produced during thawing. (Latent heat is different from measurable heat.)

Basically this means that thawed foods should be thawed quickly
(e.g., in cold water rather than in the refrigerator), and cooked or consumed immediately.

Sorry, no links, but you can look it up.

#8

Little downside minus the small percentage of things that don’t freeze well, but as somebody that used to make truck deliveries to supermarkets what I can tell you is that basically everything you every bought “refrigerated” at a supermarket was frozen when it came it! Milk is an exception because it always comes in fairly local and just gets re-branded but 90% of everything else was frozen or very near frozen when it got shipped. That’s how we made up for all the open door time at the stops, and when all that stuff is being checked in it’s typically sitting in a receiving area way longer than it should be, out of refrigeration.

(Laurie) #9

@lfod14 Ha ha, mind blown!

(Ken) #10

That’s why there is really no such thing as Fresh Fish anymore, unless you bought it at the dock or caught it yourself. That’s good, as Flash Frozen Seafood creates a fine product and is very safe to eat.