Hello Beautiful!

It looks like you're new to The Community. If you'd like to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Isn't freezing just like cooking?

I always thought freezing fresh produce like raw food destroys everything of real value in it. That’s the reason fruit and veggies turn out so mushy when thawed, isn’t it?

But freezing, especially cakes and other desserts, seems to be absolutely common among raw foodists, at least I see it a LOT in the recipes.

What I am misunderstanding?

Thanks for filling me in! :D

Comments

  • 1sweetpea1sweetpea Raw Newbie

    Anything fresh will rot as it ages. Frozen items will rot exactly the same way, only much more slowly. If you vacuum-seal whatever you’ve prepared and put it in a deep freeze, it will last longer and taste fresher than something you just wrap up and toss in your regular freezer, but make no mistake, there will be some loss in nutrients due to the fact that your formerly fresh food is now frozen and ever-so-slowly aging.

  • debbietookdebbietook Raw Master

    Hi Sossoco

    I never freeze raw food.

    For reasons, see

    http://debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com/2008/0…

  • dodododo Raw Newbie

    sossoco i think most of the freezing on here is done as a quick cooling / hardening method. or for smoothies for the following day etc. i dont think the short length of time would make any difference to the nutritional value altho freezing high water content foods will change the strucutre as the fibres become brittle whiles frozen, break and then dont hold the same structure when defrosted, but that only applies to high water stuff like strawberries. eg if you put bread in a freezer it wouldnt come out soggy as the structure hasnt changed.

    hope that helps

  • CarmentinaCarmentina Raw Newbie

    Buying commercially frozen food is not good because it’s usually cooked prior to packaging. Freezing your own fresh, raw food is a great way to prevent spoilage when you have too much food on hand (all your veggies are ready for picking all at once!). Freezing keeps all life forces vital – remember that embryos are cryogenically frozen, unthawed, and carried to life! Of course that’s better technology than our normal freezers!

  • dodododo Raw Newbie

    thats a very good point carmentina, i hadnt thought of the viable embryos that are frozen. so maybe properly sealed there is no deterioration at all, smart thinking .

  • springleafspringleaf Raw Newbie

    When you freeze food the water expands and therefore takes up more space. In any food (plant foods i.e. fruit and veg) with a high water content the expanding water will burst the cell walls of the food. Food with a high water content, like as dodo says, strawberries, will suffer more than food with a lower water content eg carrots. The goodness is still nearly all there but the cell walls keep the shape of the food, so when they are broken the food lacks shape.

    Cryogenic freezing of embryos is done in liquid nitrogen which is minus 150 centigrade, normal household freezers freeze at minus 20 centrigrade, the colder the frozen stock (embryos or food!) the longer it will last.

    Another point is that may seeds and nuts, particually from a temperate climate actually need a period of being frozen before they will germinate. This prevents fresh seeds that the plant produces in autum from germinating before the winter. So for these seeds/nuts freezing actually increases their viability.

    As carmentina says, bought froozen food is “blanched” i.e. placed for a few seconds in boiling water, and is therefore not raw.

    Freezing will destroy a small amount of the nutrition in a food so fresh is always best.

  • Now I got it! :D

    Thank you all for taking the time to write up all that great info!

  • It seems that Trader Joe’s doesn’t blanch their frozen fruit, if anyone shops there:

    http://www.rawfoodchat.com/forums/transitioning…

  • Yah onion, I buy all my organic fruit in the frozen form from Trader Joe’s. The prices are good and with that I get to make lots of ice cream and have on hand smoothie ingredients. If I had to buy fresh organic strawberries and blueberries I would not get to eat them. I also buy the frozen mango there but it is not organic because I can’t even find organic mango here. TJ’s also has their own brand of cold pressed unfiltered olive oil now. It is not organic but I can at least afford it.

  • RawKidChefRawKidChef Raw Newbie

    The only frozen things I eat are bananas that I freeze myself and occasionally frozen berries, otherwise all fresh. I store all my dates/nuts in the refrigerator. I always make ice cream from fresh young coconut meat and cashews. I only freeze it for an hour before processing through an ice cream maker and never make enough to store in the freezer. And, if I do make too much, I store it in the fridge and re-process in the ice cream maker each time I eat it. :)

Sign In or Register to comment.