Frozen and canned vegetables can be an easy, convenient, and inexpensive way to be sure you are eating your veggies all year long. And there is very little nutritional difference between fresh, frozen, or canned vegetables!
Should I Choose Fresh, Frozen, or Canned Vegetables?
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February is National Canned Food Month. This is a pretty fitting time to have this celebration, as fresh vegetables and fruits can be a little harder to come by this time of year. Sure, you can find most of them in the grocery store, but fresh produce tends to be a bit more expensive in the winter, and it sometimes doesn’t taste quite as good as the fresh summer produce. If you are one of the lucky ones who had a prolific garden last summer and was able to store a lot of your own veggies (or you are good friends with one of those people who likes to share), good for you! But what about the rest of us who didn’t have such a good garden (or any garden at all) last summer?
Frozen and canned vegetables are certainly convenient. You can buy them all year without much of a price change in the “off season.” The quality and taste is very consistent through the year, so you don’t have to worry about those tomatoes that just don’t have the same flavor in February that they would in August. They store amazingly well, and you don’t have to worry about storage. Prep work is basically nothing – just open the can, heat, add your own extra ingredients and spices if you want, and eat!
Some people may be concerned that frozen and canned vegetables don’t have the same nutritional values as their fresh versions. It turns out, they are not all that different!
I took a look at sweet corn and green beans (2 veggies we eat a lot of at our house). I compared the nutrition profiles of the fresh (cooked and raw), frozen, and canned versions of these vegetables. I was a bit surprised to see how similar the nutrition profiles really are!
The nutrition information for the fresh sweet corn and green beans comes from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) website and the Nutrition Data part of Self.com. The information from the frozen and canned sweet corn and green beans comes from the Green Giant website.
Ready? Here we go into the numbers…
The first thing to notice is that the serving sizes are not the same. You’ll have to do a little math, but you’ll find that most of the nutrition information is very comparable among fresh, frozen, and canned sweet corn and green beans.
Sweet Corn Nutrition Information
Green Beans Nutrition Information
Let’s start off with calories. Roughly double the portion size of fresh sweet corn has about three times the calories. This was for boiled corn with no added salt. Honestly, I’m not quite sure why the calorie count is that different. But, for someone who is eating 2000 calories a day (the way the percent daily values are calculated), those extra 57 calories aren’t going to make a whole lot of difference. The calories in the green beans were pretty similar across the board.
The biggest difference in both the sweet corn and the green beans was the sodium. The fresh veggies have no sodium, but the canned versions have quite a bit of sodium. Salt (sodium chloride) is added as a preservative during canning, so this is not very surprising.
Another place where the difference looks pretty large is in the last few rows of the chart – the percent daily values of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron. The fresh sweet corn and green beans do have some of each of these nutrients, but the canned and frozen have less. Sweet corn and green beans aren’t really our “go to” food to get vitamins A and C – there are plenty of other fruits and vegetables that have higher levels of these vitamins than sweet corn or green beans. (Think oranges, kiwis, and strawberries for vitamin C; carrots, lettuce, and sweet potatoes for vitamin A.)
Oh, and the ingredients in the frozen and canned vegetables? Sweet corn, water, and salt. Or green beans, water, and salt. No additives, and only salt as a preservative. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult to pronounce.
Do you keep frozen or canned vegetables on hand? Which are your favorites to stock, and which do you prefer to buy fresh?
Enjoy!
Free Printable for How to Store Fresh Produce
If you do choose to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, you’ll need to know the best ways to store them to keep them fresh. Use this handy cheat sheet as a reference when you bring fresh produce home from the grocery store.
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