Today we find in the market a variety of vegetables and fruits in different presentations, the most frequent being fresh and frozen, however, the first ones can be bought once a week and refrigerated at home before use. Although there are three valid ways to eat fruits and vegetables today we show you the nutrients they have in their fresh, chilled or frozen format.

Nutritional differences between fresh, chilled and frozen

This is not the first time that nutrient differences between fresh and frozen vegetables and fruits have been evaluated, however, a recent study published in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis included another category in the nutritional analysis : vegetables stored in a refrigerator, which is the form Most common in that consumers usually keep these foods until their consumption, although also, it is a frequent way of storage in large supermarket chains.

The results reveal that the differences are not significant among the three forms, however, the frozen ones have more nutrients than the refrigerated ones and similar nutritional concentrations or in some cases more than the fresh foods, since the latter lose nutrients during their transfer, something that does not happen when they are already frozen.

Thus, a storage in the refrigerator for five days (which is not too much), can lead to the loss of different nutrients in vegetables and fresh fruits and in this case, it is always better to opt for frozen products that preserve their properties better.

The frozen fruits and vegetables not only allow us to overcome seasonality, but also, buy once in large quantities and keep in the freezer for a long time without losing good nutrients for the body.

If you do like you buy fresh fruits and vegetables once for the whole week, you should know that maybe it’s time to change, because apparently, it is better to buy these fresh foods more often so as not to refrigerate them for many days or, opt for frozen if you know that you will not consume it shortly.

We can also whiten the vegetables or give them a quick steaming and freeze them at home if we know that we will not use them for cooking in at least three days.