What You Need to Know About Frozen Vegetables and Weight Loss
Are there benefits to stocking your freezer?
Stocking up on as many veggies that are ZeroPoint™ foods while losing weight? FANTASTIC idea. But if you typically bypass the frozen veggie section at the supermarket, you’re missing out.
Sure, your intentions are good. When your goal is to seek out the highest quality produce you can find, sticking with the fresh stuff seems best. “A lot of people have this notion of, I’m a better person if I buy fresh vegetables,” saysFrances Largeman-Roth, RDN, nutrition expert and author ofEating in Color. Thinking that way is a mistake though, experts say.
Frozen veggies can often hold their own against the fresh stuff. And sometimes, they might even be the better choice. Here’s why you should give frozen vegetables a chance, and how they can help you reach your weight-loss goals.
Frozen veggies are just as good for you as fresh.
Both fresh and frozen vegetables start out in the field where they’re grown and harvested. But their paths diverge from there: Fresh veggies are packed on refrigerated trucks and transported — often from far distances — to your local grocery store. From there, they might sit on the shelf for hours, or even days, before you toss them in your cart and bring them home. And all that time, their nutritional quality is diminishing, says Georgie Fear, RD, CSSD, nutrition coach and author ofLean Habits for Lifelong Weight Loss.
That’s not the case with frozen veggies, which studies showcan retain higher levels of some nutrients than fresh ones. They’re flash frozen within hours of being picked — and kept frozen during transport, at the market, and after you bring them home. The ultra-cold temperature prevents those all-important vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants from degrading. So when you eat them, they’re still as nutritious as the day they were picked, Largeman-Roth says.
They can help you with your weight-loss goals.
Why? Because compared with fresh veggies, they’re easy. “They’re there, and they’re basically prepared for you,” says Largeman-Roth. “Instead of chopping, peeling, or slicing, all you have to do is cook them on the stovetop or microwave.” That can be a godsend on nights when you don’t have much time (or energy) to cook—or if you do not have the room to chop and prepare—and are tempted to order takeout.
And because they last almost indefinitely, you can reach for them whenever your crisper is empty. “If you don’t have fresh vegetables on hand, you might think to yourself, well, I’m just havingspaghetti,” Fear says. “But if you have frozen vegetables, you can add them in there and make a more well-rounded meal.” You can also use frozen veggies to supplement boxed or frozen entrées to make them more filling for relatively few extra calories.
Finally, they’re easy on your food budget. “Frozen veggies are often more affordable than fresh,” Fear says. So you can simply get more of them for less money.