November 17, 2016: Buying a deep freeze and consuming frozen foods can come in handy if you don't have time to prepare fresh food daily. Fresh fruits and vegetables and also meat and grains are healthy but that doesn't imply that frozen foods are unhealthy. The phrase "the quicker the better" does not apply here.

Frozen foods were usually avoided because of the belief that fresh food is best. But frozen food has a long shelf life. Not all operators can run their kitchens without using frozen food. Also, properly frozen food can be as fresh as when it is harvested.

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If the food is frozen, it is definitely fresh. Freezing helps in slowing down the deteriorating of food and all the nutrients are locked in the food as the food is frozen immediately after harvesting. The fresh food we usually get is sitting around for days before they are cooked. By the time people receive fresh vegetables and meat, most of the nutrients are lost as products are sensitive to light.

Also, "fresh" raw fruits and vegetables are usually harvested before reaching the highest nutritional value and transported to long distance places. So, they already have less nutritional value during harvesting and they lose more during transportation.

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For freezing, fruits and vegetables with high nutritional value, ripeness, colour, and flavor are used. Freezing helps to retain these qualities. Apart from nutrition and flavor, frozen food gives the following advantages:

1. Quality and consistency: Frozen products are harvested when they are at the peak of their nutritional value and frozen to maintain the nutrients and flavors. Frozen foods have high standards of quality and have unmatched uniformity and consistency.
2. Convenience: Now, the process of preparing, storing have improved and advanced techniques are used to create gourmet quality meal. Ethnic meals, which require long preparation time, also require frozen food products. Also, the fresh ingredients of these meals are quite expensive than the frozen ones.

3. Waste-free: Another advantage of using frozen food is that it allows the chef to use the exact amount of food needed in the dish. The rest can be stored in the refrigerator. Frozen foods allow consumers to prepare only what's needed and to store the rest. It reduces food waste. It's good for the environment too.

I. Availability: Frozen foods are available all seasons.

II. Safety: Freezing delays the fungal and other microbial activity in the food. If it's frozen it's safe.

If you freeze your own meals at home, you can be assured that you are serving nutritious meals to your family. It is a great time saver as even if you have made a large batch, that you cannot finish, you can always store it for later. Freezing does not harm foods or take away the nutrients; it is how you freeze your foods or what you buy that makes the difference.

Freezing your meals at home can help reduce wastage of food. If one is serving frozen food, he can be sure that it is safe and nutritious for his family. It saves a great deal of time as we can always prepare more in a batch, freeze the remaining and save something to serve later. If done properly, freezing does not harm the food damaging its quality.

– by Diksha Arya of NewsGram. Twitter: @diksha_arya53