Free Essay for You: Fresh and Frozen Fruits as a Greater Way of Maintaining Healthy Diets

Fresh fruits can be also known as ones that are not salted, stale newly made, or harvested straight from the farm. They have a rather healthy and ruddy appearance, and they always look very tasty and thirst-quenching. They can be bought locally from markets, supermarkets, farms, garden and they are quiet easily accessible. They may include all diversity of fruits like apples, mangoes, oranges, peaches, bananas, berries, cherries etc. (Rickman, 2007).

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Frozen fruits, on the other hand, refer to ones who are promptly blanched, boiled to some extent, or steamed. They are being preserved in freezers and for the main reason being future use when needed. They also include the same diversity of fruits all over the world.

Both fresh and frozen fruits are considered healthy and high in fiber, highly packed with disease-fighting antioxidants and present with vitamins and minerals (Rickman, 2007).

Personal preference against costs and taste

My personal preference is the frozen fruits as compared to the daily fresh fruits. Frozen fruits although many might assume they are stale and always get a bad rap for being processed as junk, are on the other hand very healthy and nutritious even more than the daily supplied fresh fruits. In fact, frozen fruits are at its peak nutritional value and is often less expensive as compared to freshly supplied fruits. They are not subject to rot since they are preserved in the freezer, unlike the fresh fruits. Frozen fruits can also be ideal for making smoothies and healthy desserts. The following are some detailed reasons as to why I prefer frozen fruits to daily fresh fruits:

Versatility

Frozen fruits are versatile in nature i.e. they are capable of adapting to more than one task. They can be used to make various substances. One frozen fruit can be used in a variety of tasks like lets say it can be used to make smoothies, sometimes boil or warm them to make oatmeal, others may roast them to make snacks all at the same time. This characteristic gives frozen fruits or veggies a more upper hand than freshly supplied fruits.

Maturity

The second a fresh fruit is picked or plucked from a tree, it immediately begins to lose nutrients as time goes along with it. So after it gets plucked before it reaches the target market, it would have lost some nutrients in it. When it is bought and eaten, some valuable nutrients would already be lost. For frozen fruits, however, soon after they are plucked from the tree or harvested rather, they are immediately frozen. This allows time for them to ripen fully without losing any more nutrients. This means that they are chocked full of vitamins, antioxidants and minerals since freezing kind of locks in all that nutrients. Since they are preserved, this means that they are harvested exactly when and only when they reach their nutritional peak. For this reason, I can proudly say frozen fruits are evidently mature in a good way.

Nutritious

Frozen fruits are very nutritious even more so than fresh fruits. This is as a matter of fact proven by two independent studies. Scientists from Leatherhead Food study and University of Chester carried out various tests to measure nutrient levels in farm produce that had been sitting on a fridge for three complete days and compared them to frozen equivalents. They found out more beneficial nutrients overall in the frozen samples like blueberries. Frozen fruits packed higher levels of nutrients, minerals and antioxidants including polyphenols, anthocyains, lutein and beta-carotene in most of their tests. This proves that freezing does not destroy its nutrients but rather preserve them.(Hunter KJ, 2002)

Additives-free

Since freezing preserves fruits, there are no unwanted additives needed in the bags of frozen fruits like strawberries. More so, naked produce or raw produce like no added salt or sugar is the norm, so it's very easy to find frozen fruits with absolutely nothing added to them other than natural preservatives.

Healthy shortcuts.

After a long day of work wherever one is working, frozen fruits come in handy since they do not require chopping, washing or even peeling. One just takes them out of a freezer, and it's good for consumption. This is a super healthy shortcut that gives frozen fruits an upper hand.

Non-Dependent on seasons

Fruits always depend on seasons for them to sprout, disperse seeds, be harvested and so forth. Once fruits have been harvested, frozen fruits are being preserved for longer periods as compared to the fresh fruits because once they are out of the market they cannot be grown overnight or found elsewhere. The advantage is frozen fruits are kept in large quantities and are preserved in refrigerators. Once fruits are out of season they are still accessible.

Similarities between

Most study shows that both fresh fruits and frozen fruits have the same benefit to your health regardless of the level of contents present in each of them.

There is also some level of nutritional loss in the initial steps of processing the frozen fruits just like the fresh fruit loses some of its nutritional value during transportation and selling process. This initial steps also involves peeling, washing, heat-based blanching done for only vegetables and not necessarily on fruits. By the time they are all consumed, most frozen, fresh and canned fruits seem to be nutritionally similar regardless of their processes.

Both of them tend to lose vitamins along the way for example vitamin c is sensitive to light, heat and oxygen. So if fresh produce are stored at high temperatures during prolonged storage, vitamin c degrades slowly. The same applies to frozen fruits, during its initial stages on heating and blanching vitamin c slowly degrades and loses it.

Differences between fresh fruits and frozen fruits

There isnt much difference between frozen and fresh fruits only that frozen fruits have a higher level of nutrients, minerals and antioxidants including polyphenols, anthocyanins, and beta-carotene components. Otherwise, fresh fruits looks juicy and ruddy appetizing than frozen fruits.

In conclusion, while frozen fruits are often regarded as less nutritious than fresh fruits, the study also show or prove that this assumption is not at all true. This is sole because the effects of processing , storage, and cooking are highly variable by commodity and not the process itself. At the end of the day, frozen fruits can also be very nutritious even more so higher than fresh fruits which is contrary to the assumptions made by most people. Although there might be some setbacks in the processing of these frozen fruits, they always come in handy most of the times during our daily lives.

Work Cited

Rickman J.C, Barrett, D.M and Bruhn C.M. Nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 2007. Print.

Hunter KJ and Fletcher JM. The antioxidant activity and composition of fresh, frozen, jarred and canned vegetables. Innovative food Sci energy technology 3:399-406(2002)