Nutrition in Canned & Frozen Fruits & Vegetables

The bottom line is for your family to eat more fruits and vegetables any way they can—even canned! Personally, I feel the textural changes that occur when most fruits and vegetables are canned make the produce unappealing. I much prefer frozen and fresh. But there are people out there that may actually appreciate the softness and flavor in canned fruit and vegetables.

But is canned and frozen produce just as healthy as fresh? Some canned and frozen fruit will have added sugar or syrup and some canned vegetables will have added sodium, while fresh fruit and vegetables don't have either. And during the canning process, some of the heat-sensitive nutrients (like vitamin C) can be lost.

Produce tends to have its highest amount of nutrients when it is at its peak of ripeness. Once it is picked from the branch or vine, some of its vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals begin to break down due to exposure to heat, light, time and natural processes. So the number of nutrients in fresh produce depends on how long ago it was picked, how many days it has traveled to be in your supermarket and how long it was sitting in your crisper before you ate it.

When foods are flash frozen, they are frozen within hours of being picked. Once frozen, the nutrients and phytochemicals cannot break down further. So when is frozen possibly more nutritious than fresh? When the fresh produce spent days either being transported or sitting in the supermarket.