Frozen Fruit

You buy a selection of fresh fruit and set them on the counter hoping they will tempt your family to partake of the healthy snacks. As the days go by, you watch the fruit brown and rot until you throw them away. Then, you kick yourself for having wasted money. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be saying that you do this, but am I the only one?

When I'm not sure if my family will eat fresh fruit, I have started buying frozen fruit. Some of the healthiest fruits such as berries are too expensive to go to waste. But, several types of berries and other fruits are available frozen.

You may think that frozen fruit is not as healthy as store-bought fresh fruit. The fact is that frozen fruit is often healthier than fresh fruit. Think about the amount of time that fruit spends from the time it is picked off the vine or tree until it ends up in the grocery store. Fresh fruit is picked, stored, packaged, and shipped to the store where it may spend a significant amount of time on the shelf before purchased. During that entire time, the fruit is losing nutrients. Not to mention the time it spends in the home before its eaten.

In contrast, the fruit to be frozen spends some time between the time it is picked until it is processed and frozen. However, the fruit is no longer slowly losing its nutrients once it's frozen. Safe in the freezer, the fruit remains ready to be used without decaying.

Several varieties of fruit are sold frozen. Blackberries, cherries, peaches, raspberries, and even mangos are just some of the types of fruits that are available frozen. Many types of frozen fruit remain separated which make it easy to remove a serving at a time from the bag. Strawberries that are sliced with added sugar are sold in tubs which have to be defrosted in order to use them.  Some frozen fruits are sold in combinations like frozen fruit salad and frozen berry medleys which are combinations of different types of berries.

Frozen fruit can be used in recipes that call for frozen fruit or they can be thawed and used like fresh fruit. A person may want to thaw the fruit slightly by rinsing them with warm water and use them in cereal, yogurt, or eat them alone as a refreshing snack. One example of a type of recipe that commonly includes frozen fruit is a fruit smoothie recipe.