To the question of whether the food loses nutrients in the freezer, the answer is depends on how let’s defrost it

In a casual conversation, the bread issued came out. Consumption a lot bread I make at homeand there are times that I have to freeze it. It is a practice that seems normal to me and in the bakery themselves give me bags for the freezer, but my friends do not think the same because “Defrosting bread is not the same“Hence the question about how freezing affects the food we consume, and the truth is that it is a rich issue and with many nuances.

And almost more important than freezing, it is defrosting. There things can get dangerous to our health.

Crystal. Humanity takes thousands of years using what it has at its disposal to better conserve food. The brine is a tacticbut in areas with ice and snow, They buried the food so that it did not rot. And then, the miracle arrived: the freezer. We underestimate it because we have it at home, but it is a fundamental tool, and what happens when we put a food in the freezer is that the low temperature freezes the water present in said food.

And here is the mother of the lamb: not all foods freeze the same because, the more water they have, the more complex it will be a good defrost, the more its structure is altered and it is what can lead to us to think that the freezer is not so positive and that it alters the nutrients. But as we said, there are nuances.

It depends on what we freeze. What happens is that internal water form crystals When frozen. The more water, the more crystals they form and, if the freezing is slow, those crystals can break the cell walls of the food. When we defrost it, the crystals get rid of and it is what can cause food to be softer or perceive like water.

Vegetables and fruits suffer more than meat Because the amount of water they have inside is greater, but as we said, there are nuances because there are rich starchy vegetables whose molecular structure is maintained more than desirable after that freezing.

Taste and texture. An example. Freezing peas or corn, rich in starch, allows, after defrosting, both texture and taste are maintained satisfactorily. However, lettuce, which has a huge amount of water, not only is left without grace and soft when defrosting, also loses its flavor.

That happens because, in cell breakage, food loses its juices and, if in the meat or fish it is less evident, in fruits or vegetables whose base is the water becomes much more palpable. Then it also depends on what we do with that food: eating a defrosted lettuce is a punishment, but if we freeze watermelon, which is basically water, and without defrosting it we make a shake, the result will be satisfactory. Although even there we will notice a change of flavor. And very fatty foods such as milk or a yogurt can separate proteins, creating lumps by defrosting them. The avocado, however, endures it well.

And the nutrients? But one of the central themes of the debate revolved around the Loss of nutrients of frozen foods. This may be the point at which there is more confusion, and luckily it is a point that has been studied to be able to extract some conclusions. Again, there are nuances. Proteins, fat -soluble vitamins such as A and D of meats and fish, minerals and fiber remain stable in freezing.

An investigation from the University of Guadalajara suggests That even freezing can be beneficial to preserve certain nutrients that bioactive compounds would “eat” if we do not freeze food. However, The opposite occurs with hydrosoluble vitamins such as C or some of Group B, which are reduced slightly not during freezing, but in the defrosting of food.

And then it is not the same industrial ultra -Gellation, which freezes foods very, very fast, than the one we can do at home. In that industrial freezing, water crystals are much smaller because it does not give time to develop, damaging the cellular structure of the food.

Freeze well. It is complicated that we have at our disposal a freezer that allows us to cryogenize a steak in seconds, but what we do are techniques to freeze foods in the best possible way. To freeze them, it is best to introduce what we want to freeze in an air without air or in a hermetic container so that it does not contaminate the rest of the food we keep and its flavor does not alter, and to defrost them, There is a trick of tricksbut above all two that are fundamental.

As important as freezing is how we defrost. If it is something that we are going to cook at the moment, we can resort to the microwave or directly to the pan. In that rapid defrosting, juices are those that have hydrosoluble vitamins and, when the interior of the product reaches the optimal temperature, it would be suitable to consume. But if we have chicken, fish or a frozen homemade pizza dough, it is Bad idea to leave the piece defrosting on the countertop Or, worse, expose it to the sun.

There the thing becomes complicated and can even be harmful to the flavor due to something very simple: in a defrosting at room temperature, the base that supports the surface is defrost before and favors that the bacteria that had remained in pause retake their activity in a big way thanks to the fact that they have life, nutrients and more water than before, increasing the risk of poisoning. The best if we are not in a hurry? Plan and get out of the freezer what we are going to eat the next day and defrost it in the refrigerator.

Therefore, if they look straight for freezing bread, you know that you can not only continue doing it, but that the nutrients are not going to be affected if we perform the process correctly. And the defrosting bread (provided we have not had months in the freezer and there is “burned”) It will be as rich as soon as you put it a bit.

Images | Milan Czar, Angel Simigersky, Bozhin Karaivanov, S. Laiba Ali

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