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Fresh or frozen, canned or dried, instant or fro scratch? Which foods have the nutrients? Which do not? The fact is they all do. All foods have their place. And almost all food in its place is good food. Some foods are safer to use when they are processed. Some are more appealing when they are fresh. It’s a good idea to know your foods.
Packaged, pasteurized, fortified milk has been around for so long that no one thinks of it any more as a processed food, but it is. Because milk is pasteurized, or processed, it is now safe to drink. Unpasteurized milk may carry many germs that can make us sick.
Buy the mix or do it yourself? It is all the same nutritionally if the ingredients listed on the label are used in the same amounts and are the same ones as you would use doing it yourself.
Which bread is the best? Whole grain breads and cereals retain the germ and outer layers of grain where the B vitamins are. When wheat is milled into white flour, however, t loses these precious vitamins. Therefore, when you buy white bread, it is wise to choose the enriched kind because of added nutrients.
Fresh or frozen? Foods in the frozen food case offer as much food value as those in the produce section of the store. The choice you make depends on which foods you prefer and the amount of money you want to spend. Any loss of vitamin C in frozen fruits is minimal. Well-packaged frozen meat, poultry and fish are nutritious. They have the same food value as those that are bought right from the butcher or the fish store.
Surprisingly, fresh or raw foods are not always better than canned or frozen ones. It depends on how they are handled. For instance, leafy, dark green vegetables packed in crushed ice keep a lot of their vitamin C on the way to the store. But if they are left to sit for five days or so, they lose about half of it. Cooking will also cause some vitamin loss. Although the loss may be great, these vegetables contain large amounts of vitamins. They still provided good amounts of vitamin C and vitamin A when they are eaten.
Choosing the proper food is no game. It is a serious matter and one that we should pay much attention to.
