EatingWell Blogs (Page 12)

Nothing beats fresh produce. Still, in the kitchen, using canned or frozen fruits and vegetables can be a lot more convenient—but is it worth it? Are you giving up nutrition for convenience? Although a fresh fruit or vegetable would never be considered unhealthy, surprisingly there are a few circumstances where frozen and even canned could offer you more health benefits than fresh. Here’s a closer look at a few examples of fresh foods vs. their canned or frozen counterparts.

Fresh Tomatoes vs. Canned Tomatoes
If you’ve ever eaten a tomato in February, then you are well aware of the challenges that a fresh tomato faces. It’s a seasonal food. But even in season, canned tomatoes offer something that fresh can’t. Tomatoes are preserved using heat, which releases lycopene—a carotenoid that...

You heard the buzz (Everybody’s talking about quinoa!) and succumbed to the lure of its popularity (Everybody’s eating quinoa!), so you bought some quinoa. Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is a delicately flavored grain and one of the only plant foods that is a complete protein, meaning it has balanced quantities of 9 essential amino acids. Both white and red quinoa are available in most natural-foods stores and the natural-foods sections of many supermarkets. Toasting the grain before cooking enhances its flavor and rinsing removes any residue of saponin, quinoa’s natural, bitter protective covering.

Learn All About It: How to Cook Quinoa

So now that you have the hot grain-of-the-moment in your very own kitchen—...