Frozen meals in a bag

[AshG]

Originally Posted by Subsonic Chronic

Word. This is where they get you, and it's the same in almost all frozen, pre-made stuff. "Low-fat" shit just has more salt, and "low sodium" stuff just has more fat & sugar to compensate too, so beware the "Lean Cuisine" type of misleading product names.

Straight up frozen veggies are fantastic but anything processed/pre-cooked is gonna be slathered in ridiculous amounts of salt and/or fats.

here's an interesting fact.

so, i consume more sodium than anyone i know.

my last physical, asked my doctor about it, and his response was, "you do realize that excess sodium effects only 25% of the world's population?".
Upon further questioning regarding blood pressure, etc., he assured me that the effect he was describing part and parcel of this descriptor.

i'm very glad he mentioned it as i have a very good health record otherwise.
how the fuck is it that MOST people have no ill effect from excessive sodium consumption, yet Health Canada advises strongly against i?

[deep]

chinese vegetables are monsters

[Snuffy]

Originally Posted by Flashy_McFlash

When vegetables are flash frozen, they remain at their peak nutritional state until they're thawed. The carrots in the produce section may have been picked at the same time as those frozen carrots, but have been sitting on a truck for weeks or more since then. That's a lot of time for nutrient loss and ripening/rotting to occur.

This link has some pretty good info
Are Frozen Vegetables Less Nutritious Than Fresh?

But yeah, there needs to be a distinction between frozen vegetables (which are okay, by and large) and frozen meals like Swanson's or things like that.

When I worked on a strawberry farm, we picked the "fresh" berries while they were still white. Even after ripening, these berries were as hard as a rock and tasteless. The berries that were used for freezing were of a different strain - ripe, sweet, and tasty.

Agree with you on the Swanson dinners. The Stouffer's skillet meals are much better quality, though, and it does reflect in the $6 regular price.

[Flashy_McFlash]

I'll admit I'm not entirely familiar with the Skillet things - I'm just initially suspicious of any precooked frozen dinner. I know there are some decent ones out there, though they're the exception rather than the rule.

[Bean]

Originally Posted by mingster

i don't know about all this flash freezing stuff. you'll have a hard time convincing me that most things aren't better fresh.

absolutely, frozen > fresh!!

however, there are many reasons to buy frozen produce:

- seasonality: I personally can't stand the fresh strawberries that are available here in February and their cost.
- affordability: they're cheaper than fresh produce and if it came down to no produce or frozen produce, I would go with frozen produce.
- availability: frozen produce is available year round.

how do you feel about freezing your own produce (lots of folks do that)? i do this in the summer with berries and they turn out OK.

you have to differentiate between frozen meals (nutritional nightmares) and frozen produce (nothing added to them); nutritionally, they are not the same thing.

[swenard]

Not to defend meals in a bag, too much. But with awareness and new processing techniques, The meals in a bag aren't what are parents used to serve us.

[Lysistrata]

Originally Posted by AshG

here's an interesting fact.

so, i consume more sodium than anyone i know.

my last physical, asked my doctor about it, and his response was, "you do realize that excess sodium effects only 25% of the world's population?".
Upon further questioning regarding blood pressure, etc., he assured me that the effect he was describing part and parcel of this descriptor.

i'm very glad he mentioned it as i have a very good health record otherwise.
how the fuck is it that MOST people have no ill effect from excessive sodium consumption, yet Health Canada advises strongly against i?

i don't pay attention to how much sodium i eat. nor do i consciously make an effort to insert things with iron, protein, B12, etc into my diet even though for the most part i don't eat meat. my doc has never told me i have low levels of anything. earlier this year my gf, who loooves red meat, was told by her doc that she has low levels of iron. so when i went to my doc and he was doing hte full array of bloor tests i was really inquisitive and actually rather pushy about it, questioning my levels of everything. apparently i'm totally fine. he says i'm really healthy (with the caveats that i shouldn't drink and smoke so much of course!)

[Flashy_McFlash]

25% of the world's population includes a LOT of people though (1,700,000,000 people roughly). I mean, I'm sure that Maori tribesmen aren't worried about excess salt in their poutine, but 25% could still cover a good part of the developed world. To say that it's not something we should be concerned about because 'most' people on earth don't have this problem seems disingenuous.

Not to mention that there's no way that stat could really be substantiated in an accurate way.

[lucky1]

i think most people like to keep a little bit of "easy" food on hand. Days when you work late, are broke, aren't feeling well etc. so much eaier to throw some frozen food in the pan/ oven, and still healthier then take away food. At leas there is still veggies, and protien, and the food is not laden with transfat. I never watched my sodium, but this summer I had problems with low sodium, feeling dizzy and stuff so now I drink gatorade/ sports drinks to keep my sodium normal and I feel pretty good with the extra sodium. Its funny when your sodium is too low foods taste really salty and you don't want to eat them. So salt is important to our bodies too...all the nerve impulses that make us work require it... you need to eat some!

[Lysistrata]

best is just to make your own meals and freeze them. serious, i'll make a full meal for 4 people even if i'm at home by myself. then i'll freeze some of the rest and take some for lunches.

[vinder]

Originally Posted by mingster

i don't know about all this flash freezing stuff. you'll have a hard time convincing me that most things aren't better fresh. but i'll tell you this, when it comes to frozen meals and other time-savers, the quicker a meal is ready to be on the table once you bring it home from the store, the less value it holds. if it's "instant", or takes 5 minutes in a steaming bag, it's pre-digested.

the "preparation" of food for consumption, the cooking of it, is the initiation of the molecular breakdown of that food. an action much more beneficial if your body's actually doing the breakdown of that food, instead of a pot of boiling water. if you're eating instant rice, it's already lost the bulk of the fibres that are important for your digestive system. same thing when you boil vegetables, you lose alot of the nutrients in the water, elementary.

the reason that frozen and prepared foods are so quick to serve, is because they're already cooked and processed. do what you will but my point is only that the nutritional value of a frozen meal is lesser than the same meal, if you had made it from scratch. and yes, not to mention the high sodium and fat content.

and again, i'll reiterate that i do buy frozen foods on occasion (everyone needs convenience), mostly when they're on sale. but i'm ranting because i have friends who serve their children vegetables from a bag instead of peeling some fucking carrots and it kinda makes me really fucking mad that people can be so lazy when their developing children are concerned. either that, or they don't understand the basics of nutrition.

so it's not just prepackaged foods, it's any foods that are cooked vs. raw. what are you going to do, eat raw meat, fresh vegetables, and grains off the stalks?

[Flashy_McFlash]

That actually sounds kinda good. Well, the raw meat part. You'd have to give up chicken and probably pork though.

[swenard]

Originally Posted by Flashy_McFlash

That actually sounds kinda good. Well, the raw meat part. You'd have to give up chicken and probably pork though.

It reminds me of a family on wife swap that ate everything raw but not only raw, they didn't believe in refrigeration either and ate everything rotten.

[vinder]

Originally Posted by Flashy_McFlash

That actually sounds kinda good. Well, the raw meat part. You'd have to give up chicken and probably pork though.

i remember seeing this show on discovery where they ate chicken sashimi in japan as the chicken was super fresh. not sure if i'd do that with the chicken from the grocery store that's been there for a couple days.

[mingster]

Originally Posted by vinder

so it's not just prepackaged foods, it's any foods that are cooked vs. raw. what are you going to do, eat raw meat, fresh vegetables, and grains off the stalks?

no.

obviously, most people are going to cook some things. i'm not advocating a raw food diet. i'm just making a point about the nutrition level of different foods, at different stages of preparation.

[Flashy_McFlash]

Originally Posted by vinder

i remember seeing this show on discovery where they ate chicken sashimi in japan as the chicken was super fresh. not sure if i'd do that with the chicken from the grocery store that's been there for a couple days.

Really? I'd try that, but yeah only if it was super fresh, like if they plucked it tableside.

[Persephone]

Originally Posted by Flashy_McFlash

Yep, Alton Brown did a thing about them a while ago and that sold me on it. There's a natural initial aversion to frozen probably because most people think that something can't be both convenient and healthy, but frozen veggies/fruit are usually as good (or as your link suggests, better) than fresh.

I'm glad that someone has addressed this (Flashy and others). There's a wealth of information out there about this. I personally keep a mixture of frozen and fresh on hand at all times.

[Casey]

As far as nutrition loss when cooking veggies -I would only be concerned about it if you are already malnourished and only eating one meal every few days or something. If you are already eating a well balance diet, eating cooked veggies verses raw veggies won't make a difference.

I have bought a few frozen meals in bags lately. They weren't very good. I was sad after I ate them.

[deevah]

Originally Posted by MissBlu

so what's the deal on canned veggies?

yay or nay?

depends on the veggie

corn and tomatoes are good - the high heat used in the canning process actually helps bring out the lutein and lycopene

watch the sodium count

[Chaos]

Originally Posted by AshG

here's an interesting fact.

so, i consume more sodium than anyone i know.

my last physical, asked my doctor about it, and his response was, "you do realize that excess sodium effects only 25% of the world's population?".
Upon further questioning regarding blood pressure, etc., he assured me that the effect he was describing part and parcel of this descriptor.

i'm very glad he mentioned it as i have a very good health record otherwise.
how the fuck is it that MOST people have no ill effect from excessive sodium consumption, yet Health Canada advises strongly against i?

hahaha, one doctor tells you something and it becomes fact, hahaha.

Sounds like you two deserve each other.

[Flashy_McFlash]

I still don't know how someone can generalize the dietary habits of the entire world, but maybe the doctor substantiated it somehow.

[Psyrel]

Originally Posted by Lysistrata

i HATE this time of year (winter) when there's no farmer's markets for my produce purchasing needs. really, there's nothing good about winter.

There are some year-round farmers markets! I go to the The Stop's Green Barn - very cool historic streetcar barns, one of which houses the neatest greenhouse ever. I'm not kidding when I say that I could live in there.

List of Markets

[R4V4G3D_SKU11S]

I can't find these things anywhere!

[kirstenmeows]

Sorauren Farmer's winter market is every third Monday.

Farmers Market | Westend Food Co-op

[Snuffy]

I think the sale at No Frills just ended so they're back up to $6 a bag.

Pizzza pops are now on sale but those are without a doubt unhealthy. I may limit myself to only one 1.2 kg box ($4.99!!).