freezing raw foods

can you? what are the ‘rules’? Thank you!!!!

Comments

  • I havent heard anything bad about it. I freeze my strawberries for my shakes in the morning shrugs

  • spiritedmamaspiritedmama Raw Newbie

    There are a few other discussions on this in the forums section. If you click the Forums tap and then search for frozen food, you should find them.

  • kandacekandace Raw Newbie

    The biggest issue appears to be buying fruits and vegetables (link), as most companies blanch their frozen food before freezing. Therefore, they are cooked. It appears that Cascadian Farms may not. So, you are best off freezing your own. Think of all the delicious frozen raw deserts!

  • excellent question. I’ve wondered this too.

    The most obvious thing that freezing does is causes cell walls to rupture. I think because the water inside the cell expands. So I wonder if this would lower the amount of fiber in a food.

    As far as enzymes go, at least in raw dairy they apparently ‘go to sleep’ and then wake up. (whatever that means.) This according to the organic pastures website.

    organic pastures raw milk

    In terms of advanced glycation end products, another major advantage of raw food, I don’t think any would be created by freezing.

    looking at the wikipedia entry they say “many enzymes are only slowed by freezing” hmm.. does that imply that some are destroyed?

    wikipedia link

    so… short answer is I don’t know. I would guess that frozen food mantains many but not all of the benefits of raw food.

    It would not suprise me either if some nutrients like beta carotene and lycopene, similar to their cooked cell wall ruptured counterparts, are actually more bio-available.

  • thank you for that Kandace. I did not know that. I knew many companies wouldn’t be conscientious in caring whether during processing temperatures rose. But it never occurred to me they might purposely blanch them.

    sheesh. you can’t trust any one.

  • Technically freezing is raw, but it also kills the cells and is unnatural. That said, I still freeze fruit for smoothies sometimes.

  • thank you all for your input. it’s so nice to have found this community. that’s all very interesting. avo- my best guess would be that the enzyme’s effects would be slowed. i will take a look at the other posts as well but my real question is preservation. for example, could you make a raw granola bar and freeze for extended life? seems cryogenic!

  • That’s funny inspire304. I’ve always thought of frozen bananas as being sort of like cryogenics. Because it is like that banana would have ‘died’ on the counter but we’ve extended it’s life span 30 fold. (or however many days later you take it out of the freezer.)

    I’m not sure I’m totally understanding what you mean by preservation. But nutrients like vitamins and minerals are not destroyed by freezing. and then as discussed earlier it appears that enzymes slow down but then resume their normal activity once being brought back to room temperature.

    so yes you can put some frozen raw food next to your cryogenic chamber for when you’re unthawed in the year 2045.

    without becoming too much of a dork. oh, hell I’ll just go ahead—it is interesting that one of the major problems with cryonics is the same as for freezing raw foods. which is that the water inside cells expands and cells burst.

  • This is an interesting topic. Evergreen trees produce a substance that keeps the cell walls from being influenced by the cold- thus the evergreen aspect. I was just looking this up because freeze drying is used in camping food and it seems like it is a lot faster than using a dehydrator. Like for instance the freeze dried ice cream that is sold. They sell a counter top freeze drier now but I’m not sure how much it is. But if you were able to soak the vegetable in a preserving liquid it could be more alive when thawed. Amazingly nuts and seeds still grow after being frozen so they have a natural defense against the cold- maybe their density and fat content.

  • writeeternity – what substance do the evergreen trees produce? is it just the high pectin content of the cell walls?

    I would guess with nuts and seeds they freeze well because of their low water content.

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