Fresh vs. Frozen

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Everybody says that fresh fruit is best. Companies advertise about how fresh their products are and how many nutritional benefits you can receive from the freshest fruit. Then that got me to thinking about the fruit in the frozen section of a grocery store. Was there any difference to the fruit besides the fact that it was just frozen. Frozen fruits are usually cheaper than fresh, why? I did some research as to which was better for your health, fresh or frozen. Here’s what I found.

The overall consensus is that fresh is not better than frozen, and frozen is not better than fresh – it merely just depends on the fruit. When some fruits are frozen, they lose nutritional value and some gain nutritional value.

If i were to make a hypothesis for this study I would say my null hypothesis would be that there is no difference between fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables and my alternative hypothesis would be that there is a difference between fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables.

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Ali Bouzari, a culinary research and development company in Sonoma County, California, studied four vitamins in several fruits and vegetables and analyzed the differences between fresh and frozen produce. Bouzari used corn, carrots, broccoli, spinach, peas, green beans, strawberries and blueberries as his testing subjects and followed the potential differences between in absorbic acid, riboflavin, α-tocopherol, and β-carotene.

Bouzari concluded that there was no significant change between fresh and frozen fruits. In some of the subjects, ascorbic acid was seen to be higher in frozen fruits but not by much. The same goes for α-tocopherol. However, these changes were not a significant amount, and only proved to be true in some of the fruits in vegetables, not all of them. This makes me think that some of his results may be due to chance. In order to be more confident in this conclusion, more tests would have to be done.

Lastly, Mary Ann Lila, director of the Plants for Human Health Institute at North Carolina State University, peer reviewed this study and added the point that fresh fruit may lose nutritional value while sitting on the shelves at grocery stores, while frozen foods maintain the same nutritional value.

The overall takeaway from this is that is doesn’t really matter whether you eat fruit fresh or frozen. The changes in nutritional value does not change significantly enough to have any major effect on a person’s health. So just eat fruits and vegetables in the way that you prefer.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25526594

3 thoughts on “Fresh vs. Frozen

  1. Amanda Grace Thieu

    This article makes me feel a lot better about what goes into my smoothies. I’m kind of looking for a bargain and as a broke college student, it’s easier to get frozen fruits from Costco than to purchase fresh organic fruit from trader joes. Now I always thought that I SHOULD be buying the fresh fruits because it obviously seems healthier than fruit that’s been in a freezer for god knows how long but I’m glad that I came upon this article so I don’t feel like it’s a bad trade-off for organic fresh fruits. These are my favorite frozen fruit smoothies to make! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/frozen-fruit-smoothies-recipe.html

  2. Kate Billings

    I was a little surprised to learn that it really doesn’t matter whether you eat fresh or frozen fruit. I would have definitely thought that fresh fruit would have been a lot better for you. I was also surprised to learn that while fresh fruit sits on the shelf it might actually lose the nutrient in it. I personally like fresh fruit more than frozen fruit so I would rather eat that, but it’s good to know that either way the fruit comes it has basically the same nutritional value. Interesting topic!

  3. ljj126

    Final some good results when it comes to fruit. This was such an interesting read and very helpful. I feel like there is always that little food battle that say fresh is better or frozen is better. This has also been going on for years, so I wonder why it took so long to get some solid evidence about it. This article goes on to say that in some cases foods may be better off frozen as oppose to fresh http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/frozen-and-canned-fruits-and-vegetables-vs-fresh
    When I looked up fresh vs. frozen it took me to all kinds of webpages but none that had solid results with an hypothesis. SO this was a great read!

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