Stretch Your Food Dollar: Fresh vs. Frozen
This is the eleventh installment in our weekly series about food budgeting.
You may have noticed that the price of produce has gone up since the end of the summer. Part of that, of course, is the current trend of food inflation that has been tied to the rising price of oil (despite this week’s dip during the debates about the Wall Street bailout). Another component of the recent upturn in food prices is the end of the summer harvest season. If you’re trying to stretch your food dollar, right now is a good time to think about purchasing frozen fruits and vegetables.
One of the obvious pros of buying frozen produce is price. Here’s a quick comparison on a few basic items:
Fresh Asparagus $3.99/lb
Frozen Asparagus $1.99/12 oz
Fresh Green Beans $2.49/lb
Frozen Green Beans $2.29/24 oz
Fresh Broccoli Crowns $1.99/lb
Frozen Broccoli Crowns $1.29/lb
Fresh Blueberries $2.99/6 oz
Frozen Blueberries $2.29/12 oz
You don’t really need to worry about any nutritional loss with frozen vegetables, because they are usually frozen immediately after harvest. And the taste of frozen vegetables is pretty close to fresh. In fact, compared to canned vegetables and fruit, frozen vegetables are superior by far. Another benefit of frozen versus canned is that they don’t have the added sodium that canned veggies do. And canned fruits are often soaked in sugary syrups. If you’re watching your carbs or you’re a diabetic, canned fruits are really not an option, despite any of the price differences.
The final advantage is convenience. Normally I wouldn’t recommend buying precut fruit and veggies because you pay more. But frozen produce is the exception. The produce is already washed and cut. All you have to do is heat up your veggies by putting them in boiling water for just a minute or two. This is perfect for mid-week meals when you’re running late or you just don’t feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen.
Keep in mind that you need to rotate the food on your freezer regularly, and you also need to store items properly so that you don’t get freezer burned food. Although I’m a vegetarian, my partner is not. I cook meat for him once a week. We get our meat in bulk at Costco. A package of porkchops or chicken breast can last us two months. First I split up the larger package into portion sizes. Then I wrap the meat in parchment paper before I put in in a plastic bag. For vegetables, you should keep items in their original packages. But remember to put everything into a freezer bag after the package has been opened. Nobody likes the taste of freezer burned vegetables, and you don’t want to waste the money you’ve saved because you had to throw that solid block of frozen corn into the trash.
On an unrelated side note, I also wanted to talk about the loss of bees this week. You may or may not have noticed that bees are disappearing. There have been several explanations for the great bee die off, but no one knows for sure where all the bees have gone. The loss of bees is having a devastating effect on the agriculture industry. Over $15 billion worth of crops are pollinated by bees each year, and the lack of bees to pollinate crops is putting a dent in crop yields.
Why should you care about bees? Well, smaller crop yields mean higher food prices. And if you’re growing your own vegetables to stretch your food dollar, you may have noticed that your plants are producing flowers, but no fruit. It’s frustrating to see the investment of time and money that you’ve put into your garden stalling because your plants aren’t producing fruit without bees to pollinate the flowers. You will inevitably have to pollinate your plants by hand, but you should also think about planting flowers and shrubs to try to attract bees to your yard. I saw my first bee in the yard yesterday and I couldn’t have been happier! So do yourself and the rest of us a favor: welcome bees into your yard so that they’ll keep pollinating the flowers.
Photo credit: stock.xchng.
This is great advice. Not only are there differences in the prices, but frozen vegetables also last longer.
Sure, freezer burn can happen, but considering how much fresh vegetable I threw out because it spoiled back when I was single, the frozen variety would definitely have saved money.
*This message sponsored by Frozen Arugula Eaters for Obama
great advice, but i can’t say i’ve ever noticed whole fresh veggies in the freezer section…will have to look closer.
Hi Alex, frozen veggies are definitely good for the singleton – especially college folks who really aren’t great about pre-planning the weekly menu.
Serena, is this your way of reminding me that I need to eat more veggies? Have you been talking to my grandmother?
I am in a veggie eating phase where I cannot get enough of the stuff. Thanks for the tips on how to get more for our money.
I have never used parchment paper before, does it help ward off freezer burn by adding another layer of protection? That would DEFINITELY help out!
As for the bees, I’ve been fretting about them for the last year or so. I know it’s not as “in your face” as the current housing crisis, but it still deserves much more attention and aid than it’s currently receiving. Thank you for putting it in your piece.
Thanks for the info. I ‘ve been trying to be healthy and eat lots of veggies but fresh ones don’t always get used, even with a bunny in the house and my good intentions. I’m glad to know frozen veggies can be a good, healthy, cost effective solution!!! Thanks.
Vegetables are not one of my favorite things but thanks for the heads up.
I’m so glad I found this blog! I am one of the thousands (millions? billions?) who just assumed that fresh is less expensive and more nutrious than frozen. Thank you! Who wouldn’t be thrilled to learn how to save a litt $ these days?
Love the bee thing, too. (Hurray for links! Too few bloggers are that thorough and generous.) I’d wondered what happened with the watermelon and pumpkin this year. (Dozens of flowers, less fruit than ususal.) I will now personally thank every bee that ventures onto my propery.
But first . . . thank YOU! Great blog. Now that I’ve found you, I’ll check back often.
Great advice, Serena! I actually thought that frozen veggies lost some of their nutritional value compared to fresh, so it was good to find out otherwise. Frozen is much more convenient for a busy lifestyle.
Plus, frozen fruit is ready for smoothies, no prep work.
One other advantage to frozen vegetables is that they are usually picked when they are ripe. Buying winter vegetables in the produce section can be not only be expensive but, just doesn’t taste as good. Thanks for the great advice. Save the bees!
This is a great article! It reminds me of how wasteful I can be sometimes with buying fresh produce and not using it when it is fresh. Frozen vegetables have an advantage, not only in that they are less expensive as this post indicates, but that they last longer.
Great article! I need to buy frozen more often instead of letting all of the fresh food I buy go to waste, which ends up costing me even more money.
The loss of bees is something that probably deserves an entire column. Some environmentalists, quite literally, point to this as a sign that apocalyptic changes are around the corner. Minimally, its frightening and potentially devastating to agriculture…particularly since it is, as yet, not conclusively understood/explained.
Most people forget about the cost of running the freezer though…unless you have a very efficient newer model storing veggies can be expensive over time.
The best being a chest type freezer…when you open it all the cold air inside doesn’t flow out around your feet like in an upright.
I think its around $15 month average for the power to run a freezer now.
I’ve always restricted mine to storing high cost items…basic veggies I let the store spend the power on keeping cold.
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About Bees….
Too many memories for me…my Grandfather had over 25 colonies and I caught the “bug” and until I moved to my current home (where I don’t have a suitable place to put them) I had 10 colonies of my own.
From the time I was about 14 until I was just over 30….Still have all the empty hives and equipment in the shed.
They believe they may have found the cause of “Sudden Colony Collapse” as its called believing it to be a Viral disease first noticed in Israel…though no cure.
If we lose too many colonies we will see food shortages like nothing anyone has ever believed possible.
~ Roland
Wonderful article! many people do not pay enough attention to the drastic bee epidemic and fail to realize the true global impact. It’s bad enough with food shortages right now, let alone if the bee issue continues in the direction it’s headed! I’m also glad you pointed out polinating by hand! Another thing people don’t realize is how expensive food will become when growers have to hire people to polinate for them!
Very useful column, especially with the sky high prices. I have been buying frozen more often because I often throw away fruit and veggies. We have a chest type freezer like FrugalZen mentions, but the difficulty is losing track of all the frozen things and rotating them properly.
Can someone explain whether the parchment paper is absolutely necessary, and if vacuum-sealing meat requires parchment paper too? Thanks.
I do love me some frozen foods. Easy and cheap . . . its a good way to work š
I hear that bee populations are being killed by cellphone waves in the air messing with their sense of direction. I hope that is not the case, because cell phones are for yes.
Frozen vegetables are awesome because you can toss them in everything from stir frys to sauces to soups. š
Thanks for all the comments, ya’ll! Southern Comfort and Roland have some great points about bees, and I might revisit this topic again next week, as well as offer more gardening tips for those of you who are following the gardening thread as a way to stretch your food budget.
As for the fresh produce queries, you might want to check out the post I offered a few weeks ago about storing fresh produce properly as a way of stretching your food dollar.
Glad to know that an expert chef will still use frozen fruits and veggies.
Regarding bees, part of their demise is due to Americans’ obsession with pavement. The more effecient pollinators are native bees (vs. honeybees), who live in native shrubbery or in the ground. The more we pave over the earth, the less places they have to live. Many organic farmers are planting hedgerows of native plants to make homes for the bees. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published a great aritcle on the subject in their OnEarth magazine, back in June ’06.
Native bees can survive in even small patches of native habitat. Plant native plants if you have a yard.
Yay bees!!
As for frozen food, we Love frozen berries. Just fill a bowl and let them sit until they’re the right temperature for you (some like them frozen; I like them totally thawed). Delicious, nutritious snack! Full of health-promoting antioxidants (that are not at all degraded in the freezing process).
Great post, Serena. Thanks.
looks like i need to go raid the grocery store for some frozen broccoli. my mother will be very happy with you, serena, for getting her baby to eat his veggies.
One of the major benefits to buying frozen veggies and fruits is that they do not spoil nearly as quickly as fresh produce! I often forget how infrequently I actually eat the fruit I buy within a few days, and this is a great reminder to buy frozen so I don’t have to throw away peaches that were great three days ago, but now, when I want to eat them, are inedible!
Also, I wouldn’t have though to put the whole bag in a freezer bag. Great tip!
Great ideas Serena! Another great idea to save money (and the world) is to buy straight from the source and get to know some farmers in your area. Beyond growing your own veggies (like I do) people can also join Community Supported Agriculture groups (CSAs) and freeze their own veggies over the course of the growing season. I also buy both beef and pork in bulk from local farmers. I typically order 1/4 of a cow and 1/2 a hog and split up the cuts with friends to share the cost. Both the beef and pork averages less that $3 a pound for really quality grass-fed meat. The butcher deep freezes all of the meat so that it’s good in my freezer for up to 18 months – but it never lasts that long!
Keep up the great work!
On top of bees dying off, a student of mine recently alerted me to the peril of hummingbirds, which are unique pollinators. Their long beaks get into plants that other pollinators can’t.
Roland, good point about the cost of appliances. Since I only have your typical refigerator, I don’t really factor that into my food budget. I guess I should have been more specific that I was talking about your regular fridge/freezer combo.
The October issue of Texas Monthly has an interesting article about bees:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2008-10-01/feature4
my memories of frozen veggies are of broccoli with that nasty cheese sauce on it… it’s time I stopped by the freezer section again.
I’m a big fan of the frozen lima beans!
Frugal Zen, are you suggesting we all get rid of our refrigerators? I’m not sure what your point is as everyone is probably going to pay that $15 per month anyway.
I have read numerous places that a freezer runs more efficiently when it has stuff in it – I don’t know if or how much that cuts into the $15 figure, but another good reason to have a supply of frozen veggies on hand.
I find that my plastic freezer bags can be rinsed and recycled for use in frozend fruits and vegetables. That helps stretch the dollars spent even further.
I appreciate your embedded hot-links to referred articles so that I don’t have to take the time to find the information myself – but can click and read right away.
This is another great article – I’d never done an anylisis of cost of fresh vs frozen but now I’ll certainly be more aware.
Thank you.
Yes the bees disappearing is scary. The consequences could be pretty huge.
Thanks for all the comments about bees. I will definitely be revisiting the topic next week. I appreciate the links Lyn and buster.
Alysia, great point about CSA’s. I’ve talked about them several times, as well as supporting your local farmers’ markets. It is a great boost to the local economy, you get to know your food purveyor, and you aren’t paying for gas surcharges by getting your produce directly from the source.
Paris, fridges and freezers do run more efficiently when they have food in them, because the food itself helps maintain the temperature. But you also want to avoid overloading them, because then the machine has to work to hard. Wehn is it overloaded? Well, if you have to jam the door shut, that’s a pretty good indication.
Kale, if meat is already vaccuum packed, then you don’t need to worry about wrapping it. Just keep it in the original packaging. But if you’re splitting up larger packages so that you can thaw individual portions one at a time, you want to have an extra layer of protection between the meat and your freezer. So parchment plus a plastic bag is really the best way to go.
Kale: Parchment paper is not necessary if you vacuum seal something. One of my Grandfathers was a Butcher..the reason for using parchment or kraft paper to wrap foods…especially meat…is that it is absorbent whereas plastic wrap and cling film is not.
Freezer Burn is the formation of Ice Crystals on food that partially thaws. The moisture coming from the food itself in its package. Paper absorbs most of the moisture so you don’t get the ice crystals…or very few of them. When they do form on food they tend to draw even more moisture from the food during partial thaws…and just opening the door to the freezer is enough for “thaw” that to happen.
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Paris: The point is if you have a dedicated large freezer you’re going to spend probably about the $15 to keep it and everything in it Frozen.
True a well packed freezer uses less power but it still uses it.
At a certain point you get diminishing returns from WHAT you put in it based on the freezers capacity. Veggies are usually cheap but bulky whereas meat and fish are not. A cubic foot of broccoli doesn’t begin to compare in cost to a cubic foot of sirloin.
A 20 cubic foot freezer will hold maybe $300 worth of broccoli but more than $2000 worth of beef.
If it takes you a year to eat either you spend $180 (12x$15) to operate the freezer. Thats 60% of the cost of the broccoli ($180/$300) but only 9% ($180/$2000) of the cost of the beef. You’d be better off just buying fresh broccoli when you needed it….it would probably be cheaper.
I guess this can argue against having a big freezer..the bigger the capacity the less economical things like veggies become to keep frozen.
~ Roland
Thank you for this information. I am glad I found this site. How about a piece on co-operative stores (unless perhaps you have done that already)?
Is it better to boil or stream frozen veggies? I’ve seen ads for those steaming bags on TV.
thanks for the heads up on the bees. also, i appreciate your info about frozen veggies. i had tried to stay away from them in the past because of some things i had read. thanks again!
Hi Nikki, steaming is good if you’re cooking something that isn’t a green veggie. The general rule of thumb is that green veggies should be cooked with the lid off. Hence, steaming won’t work. Just remember to keep your cooking times short on all veggies. You still want the veggies to be crisp.
Gabrielle, I will definitely be discussing co-ops in future articles. Thanks for the suggestion.
For us clumsy folk, frozen veggies and fruit can serve as an ice pack for ankles, wrists, knees, or whatever you hurt on your way down. =)
Thanks for the tips, Serena! i was always taught that there is more salt in frozen food to preserve it and that fresh was “better” in that respect. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
This is good information and I take it to heart. I have always worried about the waste when fresh fruits go bad, which is just the way nature works. Thank you, Serena, for good information and advice.
About the bees…we have a colony of bees that has set up housekeeping in the outside wall of our house. Our citrus trees have a bumper crop this year. No coincidence! I can’t bear to have someone exterminate them, so maybe they will just stay happy in their new home.
Hi Lauryn, it used to be that frozen foods did loose nutritional value because of the added salt, etc. But technology has come along so far since Birdseye first invented frozen foods. Food is put into these blast freezers that drops the temperature so rapidly that food is almost instantly frozen. I guess you could argue about the environmental impact because it surely takes a lot of energy to run a blast chiller. But in terms of health consequences because of reduced food borne illnesses, less salt, etc. it’s a lot better for us in the long run.
Jane, I wish I had your citrus trees at my house! Maybe you could encourage some of your bees to move to Tucson!
Though its too hot in Arizona for soup, I have found that if i have peppers, celery, mushrooms or some other vegetables, i chop them up and freeze them for making soup in the fall or winter. i try to buy at the best value and in best quantities but with travel i do have some veggies that get a bit soft or over ripe. they get rinsed, chopped and frozen in bags and have been great stock for pasta fazul or Minestrone.
Great suggestions, Kelly. THANKS!