Frozen foods are stored for a long time and can help out in a situation where there is no way to go shopping at the store. But not all products are subject to freezing, because after thawing they will be unfit for food.
Pick your recipe
A few decades ago, housewives could see frozen foods only on store shelves, and then this was considered an unusual innovation, and now everyone can freeze food in their refrigerator. The principle of most home freezers is the same, but there are rules for freezing foods that every housewife must observe.
Frozen foods have an expiration date.
Although the shelf life of a frozen product is usually ten times longer than the shelf life of fresh, but still it is. Products that lie longer than the indicated time must be disposed of, otherwise there is a risk of poisoning. Maximum expiration dates for different products vary:
meat (pork, lamb, beef, horse meat) - up to six months; whole chicken - up to a year, in parts - up to 9 months; ready meals (including soups) - no more than 3 months; oily fish - up to 3 months, the rest - up to six months; fresh mushrooms - up to 8 months, boiled - up to a year; seafood - 3-4 months; berries - up to six months; nuts - up to two years; greens - not more than a month; bakery products - no more than three months.
Vegetables with fruits can be frozen, but they also have different storage periods:
most fruits and vegetables - up to a year; tomatoes - up to two months; pepper - 3-4 months; apples - 4 months; apricots and peaches - 4-6 months; pumpkin - up to 10 months; cabbage, cucumbers, celery - do not recommend freezing.
In order to maximize the shelf life of frozen products, it is necessary to maintain a constant temperature in the freezer and not even allow partial defrosting. It is necessary to store products in batches so as not to defrost a large volume each time.
To extend the shelf life of meat, you need to freeze it unwashed. Water reduces the storage of meat products by half.
Before freezing the whole chicken, offal must be removed from it, since the chicken and offal have different shelf life.
The packaging in which frozen products will be stored must be airtight.
Bacteria are not destroyed in frozen foods
There is a myth that freezing can kill pathogenic bacteria, but scientists have long disproved it. The same bacteria were found on the surface of fresh and frozen foods, only in the second case they become inactive. With prolonged thawing, the bacteria are able to activate and develop further, causing damage to the product.
In order for bacteria to have less potential for development, you need to defrost foods correctly. For this, frozen products must be removed from the freezer, put on a plate and put on the lower shelf of the refrigerator until completely defrosted. This method is considered the safest. Thawing outdoors is not the best option, since it is in this case that bacteria can become active, especially on meat, fish and poultry.
Frozen foods contain the same amount of vitamins as fresh
Another common misconception is that frozen foods lose most of their healthy vitamins and substances. With this we can agree and argue. For example, “shock” freezing (used in large industries) is really capable of destroying a certain amount of useful substances, but not all. But the home freezer completely preserves the majority of vitamins.
In order for the products from the freezer to be as useful as possible, you need to buy them for freezing in the season (for example, winter fruits will probably be full of nitrates, and summer fruits will not), and thawed with a steam bath, then the necessary vitamins and minerals will not leave with water.
Thawed foods can be re-frozen
Repeated freezing is not permissible, since it is not only harmful, but also has a strong effect on the palatability of the products. But there are situations when defrosting occurs independently of a person (for example, when a power outage occurs in a house). In this case, it is permissible if the product lay in air for 2 hours before returning to the freezer. The exception is meat, fish and poultry, it is better to cook these products immediately.