As a parental team, Pam and I try to provide our kids with a well rounded diet including a variety of fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, our kids tend to like vegetables more than most kids I have met. My current working theory on why this is so stems from the fact that Pam is a vegetarian. While in the womb, my children never got a taste for the finer things in life: beef, chicken, lamb, or pork. And while breastfeeding they still were basically vegetarians. It wasn’t until they started eating solid foods that they were exposed to meat products–and neither of them really liked it. To this day, Megan won’t touch any meat, and Liam won’t eat it very well. They both get most of their protein from copious amounts of dairy products–yogurt, milk, cheese and the like.
This is sometimes difficult for me since it’s well documented that when given a choice, I’ll choose to eat something (OK, anything) other than fruits and vegetables. However, I am getting better at this. In fact, I’m starting to enjoy reaching into the fruit bowl for a snack, or having a nice salad for a dinner.
There are lots of ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into a meal plan. Searching the frozen food section at the grocery store yields a plethora of vegetable options. And it’s certainly easier to open the freezer and pull out a bag of already prepped peas, corn, carrots, or broccoli. But is easier the better option? What about the nutrition of these frozen vegetables? Are they just as healthy as their fresh counterparts? And what about canned veggies?
Fresh
One of the things I love about living in the country is that we have ample room to grow our own vegetables and fruits. We have cherries, peaches, pears, apples, and tons of berries. Lettuce, carrots, peas, tomatoes, corn, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, and asparagus are some of the veggies that we have been known to grow. There’s nothing like going outside and picking what you want to eat for dinner. Straight from the garden to the table is definitely the healthiest way to eat your produce. But just how fresh are those veggies at the megastore? The minute they’re picked, they start to lose nutritional value. How much time has elapsed from field to floor of the store? You never know.
Frozen
In 1998, the FDA confirmed that frozen fruits and vegetable can pack as much, if not more, nutritional value than their fresh counterparts. Since they’re picked, blanched, and frozen within hours of their harvesting, they have little time to lose nutritional value. Also, they’re picked at their peak of freshness–which only enhances their nutritional value.
Canned
Canned veggies and fruits on the other hand have been shown to have the least nutritional value because of the extensive heating during the canning process. This heating can sometimes cause a leaching of the vitamins and minerals out of the food and into the cooking water. Unless you’re drinking that water, you’re not getting as much nutritional benefit from those canned vegetables and fruits.
So, if you want to max out your fruit and vegetable nutrition, grow your own or buy from the local farmer’s market. If you can’t do that, buy frozen. But canned is still better than a box of doughnuts!
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Don’t forget about dried!
Mmmmm….dried cranberries….
I opt for fresh for most vegetables, frozen for some dishes and in some seasons, and canned for a select few dishes. Canned red peppers for example, or canned capers, make great additions to a lot of red sauces.
Another big downside to canned veg. for kids is the added preservatives and sweeteners (high fructose corn syrup, for example) – from my experience, they really skewed my tastes away from fresh because the canned corn was Always sweeter.
I can my own veggies and there isnt any added sugars or fructose. Remember that is an option.
I like the idea of frozen, but often it’s “out of sight, out of mind,” and I end up with freezer-burned stuff. For capers and red peppers etc I go with bottled in glas — which avoids any contamination from can linings.
Great Post! I am a Registered Dietitian and I agree with all the points you made. Only if you opt for the can, watch the sodium. They do make No Added Salt canned veggies, but they don’t always taste that great.
Don’t trust lab analysis!
How’s what you need to do:
1. Eat a vegetable-free diet consisting of nothing but waffles, donuts, Hamburgers, french fries, Pizza, candy and any other nutrition-free garbage you can find until you feel like you’re gonna drop dead.
2. Now start eating canned vegetables and see how quickly you perk back up.
3. Repeat process but substitute the same frozen or fresh vegetables in step 2.
Your own body will tell you whether it’s getting what it needs if you can learn to hear it.
I have always eaten a lot of raw veges (I am not a vegetarian though). Just by seeing me munching on raw carrots etc my kids have picked up the habit too. They think of having a raw carrot after dinner as a treat!
.-= Kelly´s last blog ..Organic Crops in Pots: How to Grow Your Own Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs =-.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions floating around about canned veggies. First of all, canned vegetables contain no preservatives. Shelf life is a function of the food being canned first and then cooked – which kills all of the bacteria within the can. Sodium is added for flavor, and there are certainly lines of no/low sodium veggies available.
Second, there is independent research that suggests that – at the time you eat them – unless you are harvesting veggies straight out of your backyard – there are very little nutritional differences between fresh, frozen, and canned vegetables. Moreover, in some instances, canned food can actually have the greatest nutritional value. Here’s a link from WebMD that explains this: http://bit.ly/hNGTop
Fresh vegetables lose up to half of their nutrients as a result of being exposed to light and air. It sometimes takes a week for them to get on your grocers’ shelves, and then they are required to last a minimum (e.g.10) number of days beyond that.
Frozen food gets blanched and frozen – and sometimes goes through a process of thawing and freezing multiple times before it gets to your plate. All of that compromises its nutritional value.
I work for a company that sells canned food and our vegetables are harvested by family farmers at the height of freshness and nutritional value. They go from the field to the can in less than 24 hours which locks in the nutrition at its greatest point.
It’s a personal choice between the type of vegetables and fruit one eats. Obviously we all recognize ‘the more the better’! Certainly for many who don’t have access to local farms or backyard gardens, canned vegetables can be a key tool to health, and a viable way for people to get their daily requirements. Beyond that, there are many living in urban environments (food deserts) where cans are about the only way that they can get fruit and vegetables. If anything, the fresh and frozen food industries have had more aggressive PR efforts to push their interests. I just hope consumers can learn the realities to empower them to make the best decisions for their families.
I agree with most of the points you have made. I have been doing a lot of research on healthly eating and I have found that, you need to eat all the veggies you can, fresh, frozen, or canned. I also found that fresh veggies can lose nutritional value after a few day.
If you are worried about the extra sugar and sodium in canned veggies, just rinse them out prior to cooking and cook in them in tap water.
Im not worried about the veggies being canned or frozen . Weather they loose their nutrients or not. Because i take my daily vitamins everyday which has vitamin d,b,c,a,k, fiber, everything i need this vitamin has it . So what im saying is what ever i loose in the canned or frozened vegies , it’s replaced with my daily vitamin. Ha.
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