Canned vs frozen vs fresh vegetables.

i CANNOT do canned anymore, gave it up for a few months (i used to eat lots), and when i tried to eat some canned green beans i literally got sick. i thought it might be a coincidence but it happened again several other times with different brands and different foods. this just tells me theres something in the preservatives that my body no longer can digest!

canned food just scares me now; how come the water foams when you rince? sketch. it just grosses me out ^^ i think frozen is fine if you cant get the fresh.

It may be the plastic can lining that your body doesn't like--it leaches trace amounts of plasticizers into the food. Another thing that we need to be cautious about is the source for the food. I bought some frozen broccoli the other day and we had eaten half the package before I noticed the "product of China" label. :frown: China is basically an open industrial sewer these days and it is that polluted ground water that is used to water their crops. The frozen broccoli could have been contaminated with lead, arsenic, mercury, PCBs, etc. from that irrigation water. :mad: I threw the rest of the package away. I read EVERY label these days to make sure that the food was grown in North America or even Chile (where we actually have standards about such things). The Chinese glibly poison their own people (remember the baby formula tainted with melamine a few years ago?) What would make us think that they wouldn't poison us? Very few Chinese businessmen have any ethical standards. They routinely fake all kinds of "safety standards" labeling. They are very tricky in other ways, sending a "sample" of a product that is untainted, and then when an order is made for more, shipping a heavily tainted product. And then business men here try to get their money back, only to be stonewalled by the Chinese producer and/or the Chinese government. :mad:

Frozen does have some small cellular damage, but it's not that bad.

What do you think happens when you chew and then swallow them?

Frozen is arguably better than fresh in many instances.

I don't bother with any canned vegetables. I stock a good amount of frozen veg that I can quickly use in things like stir fry, soups, or a quick side to go with my protein at dinner such as a green bean.

Fresh is definitely the best way if you don't over stock your fridge.

I do a thing called Bountiful Baskets which is a farm co-op, so we get a 50/50 mix of fruits and veggies from local farmers. I prefer to always use fresh, but many times we get so much I freeze much of what I get. I also buy fresh from the store to fill in for certain fruits and veggies. In a pinch I will do certain things pre-packaged frozen and canned, but not much.

I eat frozen when I cannot get to fresh. From what I've heard frozen is better than canned. In regards to fruits I prefer fresh.

I prefer fresh, and think it's better for you but the sodium levels in canned and frozen never bothered me. I also drink a LOT of water.

BPA should be banned from canned goods and not just baby products. Hormone disruptors: "ain't nobody got time for that!!"

Amen.

^ I agree. Actually, it can also be the case that frozen vegetables have even more nutrients than fresh ones. They are being frozen right after they were picked whereas fresh veggies are sitting sometimes several days in the grocery store until you come and pick them up.

^^^^ this

I'd say it goes like this, both in terms of taste and nutritional quality

best: freshly picked vegetables (grow your own, pick your own farms, eaten as soon as possible after picking, etc)
close 2nd: vegetables that are frozen right after picking and not kept in the freezer for that long
close 3rd: vegetables that have been sitting around for a long time

not so close 4th: tinned veggies - these are heated to a high temperature and sodium is added, both of these reduce the amount of nutrition in them. it also changes the balance between sodium and potassium... fresh veggies have much more potassium than sodium, in fact it's at about the ratio that your body needs sodium and potassium in... whereas tinned vegetables have a lot more sodium than potassium, so if you only eat tinned veggies then you're likely to get too much sodium and not enough potassium

last place: no veggies at all.

so basically, stick to fresh or frozen as much as you can, but tinned veggies are still veggies and you'll still get nutrition from them, just not as much (and be careful of the sodium if blood pressure or water retention is an issue for you).

I'm not sure where dried veggies/fruit would go on here, it would depend on whether they have been exposed to heat and have lots of added sodium. potato crisps (aka chips in the USA) are not exactly what I'd call nutritious, but dried fruit is pretty nutritious, albeit rather calorie dense and easy to overeat on (fresh is more filling for fewer calories).

During the winter I rely on Frozen or canned - I get the fresh when I can. I live too far from a grocery store to use only fresh. I have a garden that I use for most of my vegetables. Fruit, the same. I think as long as you are consuming fruits and veggies in moderation, either fresh, frozen or canned you are doing great.