Would frozen produce by any other term bring sales as sweet?
The folks who freeze fruits and vegetables don’t think so.
They wanted the term
"healthy" on their labels. And the Food and Drug
Administration says they’re
entitled to it.
The FDA has ruled that fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables
have roughly the same
nutrients. The agency proposes that frozen produce, without
sauces or other ingredients,
can bear labels using the term "healthy."
"The term ‘healthy’ has been very narrowly defined, as
has the word ‘fresh,’"
said Connie Crawley, a food, nutrition and health specialist
with the University of
Georgia Extension Service.
"It’s in the producers’ interest to have healthy or
fresh on their label because
consumers think it’s better for us," Crawley said.
"FDA isn’t always consistent
with the terms across the food categories."
Before the current label definitions, producers could use
terms like healthy and fresh
on any product.
"They could say anything they wanted to before,"
Crawley said. "But now
everything has to be looked at on an individual basis to use the
term healthy."
In light of this new ruling, the canned-produce industry
wants to label their products
healthy, too. But FDA said they failed to submit data backing
their request.
"Usually when you heat-process anything, there is some
loss of nutrients,
especially the water-soluble vitamins — even vitamin A and
carotene," Crawley said.
"With frozen foods there’s no blanching," she said.
"They’re usually
flash-frozen if they don’t have a sauce on them."
Frozen fruits and vegetables, in short, are good for you.
"In some respects they are more nutritious than produce
in the grocery
store," Crawley said. "The food in the grocery has
been exposed to air and
light, and nothing has been done to slow the loss of
nutrients."
As long as frozen foods are packaged well and don’t suffer
any freezer burn, they’re as
close to fresh as you can get.
"In some cases they may even be better for you,"
Crawley said.
For example, processors add vitamin C to frozen grapefruit to
keep it from changing
color. So the vitamin C content jumps to 235 mg in the frozen
from just 6 mg in a fresh
grapefruit.
"I can see why the canned food industry is upset,"
Crawley said. "When
you look at the nutrients of canned versus frozen, there isn’t
that much degradation as
long as they use the juice when packing.
"It’s all about how you present the data, and the frozen
food industry obviously
made a good case," she said. "The actual change from
canned to frozen to fresh
is not that much."
