Are Frozen Vegetables as Nutritious as Fresh?
Christine M. Bruhn, PhD, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California–Davis and coauthor of a nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen, and canned fruits and vegetables, says the nutrition levels are about even, assuming that you’re buying your vegetables from a grocery store. “By the time vegetables are consumed, fresh, frozen, and canned have similar nutritional values,” she says. “Frozen is picked and frozen within hours, whereas fresh is placed in the shipping container and shipped across the country to the supermarket warehouse, then to the supermarket back room, the supermarket shelf, and finally to the consumer’s refrigerator.” Bruhn says that while nutrients like vitamin A, minerals, and fiber are stable, others, like vitamin C, react with oxygen after the vegetable is picked and change chemically so that they no longer function the same way in our bodies. This is called oxidative degradation. One study found that broccoli traveled an average of 2
