Are you thinking about a fresh meal plan or frozen meal plan? If you consider yourself a foodie, you have no doubt heard of the farm-to-table movement. Farm-to-table eating refers to the idea that the best food is food that goes through the least amount of paces to get from where it is grown to where it is eaten. Farm-to-table advocates suggest that eating locally produced seasonal fresh food is one of the best ways to eat well and live well. We could not agree more, but why exactly, is fresh food superior to frozen food?
Fresh Food Plans Easier to Stick to If the Food Tastes Good
The single most important reason to choose fresh food over frozen food is fresh food tastes better. In the battle over taste, frozen foods will never win. Let’s play a version of the time honored would you rather game. Think about it, would you rather eat a honey roasted heirloom carrot that has just the right crunch or a soft, machine cut mushy carrot bathing in watery sauce? Would you rather a fresh pasta salad with roasted pine nuts that retain a hint of crunch, fresh crumbled feta cheese, pieces of roasted red peppers with their distinct smoky flavours, bright tomatoes dressed in an herb infused lemony dressing or would you rather eat a half cup of overcooked noodles swimming around with mushy vegetables that offer the muddled flavors of broccoli-ish, carrot-kind of, mushroom-like and cardboard? Would you rather eat a fresh fruit tart or scrape bits of overly sweetened apple pie filling from your plastic tray and call it dessert? Eating heathy doesn’t mean food shouldn’t look and taste good.
Fresh food simply tastes better and when food tastes good, you are more likely to eat it. I’ll admit it, in the battle over the bulge, in days past, I tried a packaged meal service. It was like being in the army, the food came delivered at one time for a whole month stacked up in little trays. At first it was exciting to see it all, my choices line up before me. But after eating a bit of the ‘food,’ the luster quickly wore off. I would open up the freezer and look over my choices with dismay. I ate up the few palatable items quickly and then spent far too much time trying to pick the least offensive entrée. What happened eventually? Probably what happens to many of us trying frozen food plans, I ordered Indian takeout and chucked the rest of the meals in the rubbish bin. Lots of money down the drain along with my goal of eating healthy and I went with food that tasted good as we humans are programmed to do.
Fresh Healthy Food Offers the Variety, Textures & Tastes to Keep Us Omnivores Satisfied
Fresh food comes from simple, quality ingredients, artfully combined, seasoned well and cooked in a way that elevates these fresh tasty flavours to something truly pleasurable. Even if you are following a healthy meal plan or a weight loss regime, fresh food can make sitting down for a meal feel like a treat rather than a punishment. We humans are omnivores, meaning we are designed to eat a wide variety of foods. Fresh foods allow us a great variety of tastes and textures to keep our variety loving palettes satisfied. With fresh healthy eating plans, we get warm, savory, sweet, crunch, roasted flavours, fresh flavourful vegetables, bright acidic bursts of zing and more. All too often with frozen meal plans, we get a muddling of flavours, over salted, over cooked, over sauced meats and vegetables that leave us unsatisfied and more prone to veering from our healthy eating goals or reaching for more palette pleasing snacks. Fresh food offers much better textures and distinct individual flavours that leave you feeling satisfied. Likewise, fresh food offers a better mix of ingredients and typically larger portions because of the inclusion of better tasting greens and vegetables, you don’t have to settle for a little cardboard tray of “food”. The best healthy eating plans will give you a wide variety of food, tastes and textures that look and taste good making it easier to stick to healthy eating and weight loss goals.
The Upside of Frozen Food
While fresh food is best from a nutritional and taste standpoint, frozen food still has some benefits. The Australian Department of Health & Aging recommends that every adult get at least 2 serving of fruit per day and five serving of vegetables. At the end of the day, if cost or availability means you must eat some frozen or canned fruits and vegetables, this is still better than not eating them. On that same note, frozen fruit and vegetables are great when making fruit smoothies or a convenient addition to quick soups and stews. If you buy and eat frozen food, remember to keep it simple just like your fresh food, skip fast food stir frys with noodles and heavy sugar and sodium laden sauces and opt instead for simple, healthy choices like frozen peas, edamame, broccoli and corn.
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