Fresh vs Frozen vs Canned frts and veg

Let's say you're striving to consume the minimum recommended daily quota of five servings of fruits and vegetables. And, using our imaginations just a little, let's say the inside of your refrigerator looks like mine: a lovely selection of condiments and low-fat salad dressings, an egg of undetermined age and some unidentifiable dollops of stuff in butter tubs that seem to be breathing.

The freezer, on the other hand, is well-stocked, as is the pantry.

That's because I hate grocery shopping. And when it comes to produce-broccoli trees and the like, I'm at a loss. I know fresh is best when it comes to this food group, but the high maintenance (scrubbing, peeling, calling my mom to find out what exactly one does with collards...) is too much of a tradeoff for high fiber and nutrition.

That's why the Green Giant is my friend.

And, according to JoAn [CQ] Todd, Nutrition Specialist for the University of Illinois' Kane County Extension office and a Nutrition and Wellness Educator with the University of Illinois at the Rockford Center, my convenient frozen for fresh trade-off is actually pretty nutritionally sound.

"We just hope people will eat their five servings, whether it's fresh, frozen or canned," she said. "With research, it's been shown that many times with fresh versus frozen, the frozen is in fact more nutritious, especially if the two are compared when the fresh is off season or when gardens are not producing."

Light, oxygen, varying temperatures and humidity all affect the freshness of fruits and vegetables and, depending on the produce, can result in lost vitamins and minerals within just a few days, Todd said. "But when you compare the difference [in nutrition] between fresh and frozen, it's so minute, it's hardly worth worrying about," she added. "It's more important to worry about consuming five to seven servings than to worry about the form you're getting it in."

Richard Wolff, director of the center for nutrition at Elgin Nautilus agreed, noting that canned fruits and vegetables are also good food choices, particularly low salt and "lite" varieties, which are more readily available now days.

"If we had to rank foods available in our culture to eat, canned fruits and vegetables would rank right up there near the top," he said. "They're not as nutritionally dense (as fresh or frozen), but they're still a good food choice overall."

Because many Americans average less than one serving of fruits or vegetables daily, "This country would be in a lot better position health-wise if people started eating more canned fruits and vegetables," Wolff said, "because they would be getting more of the nutrients we tend to not get enough of in our diet, and it would begin to crowd out the less nutritious and fatty foods that most people tend to eat more of."

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws