Hi everybody,

I'm finding it challenging to get good produce here in Chicago in the winter. Been getting some crazy fruit lately that lasts an unnaturally long time, still doesn't seem ripe, and makes my throat itch. Anyway, I work on the Mag Mile and the restaurants there are expensive. So I've been eating a lot of soups and other kinds of pre-packaged goods. I've read that a lot of nutrients are lost in canned products and that it's better to purchase frozen items, but I don't know if that's true or to what extent.
Are canned soups/fruits giving me the nutrients I need? Any thoughts?

To my knowledge, canned veggies and fruits have very little nutritive value. Frozen is better. Fresh is best, of course. It could be the pesticides on the fruit that is making your throat itch. Try washing them in a mild hydrochloric acid solution before eating them. Put the juice of a fresh lemon and a 1/4 cup of salt in a sink or bowl with a gallon or two of water. Let them soak for a few minutes and give them a good rub. Rinse them with cold water and dry them. Better than any veggie wash you can buy in the store and much cheaper.

Canned veggies are gross!
Also, they are ridden with sodium for the most part, lacking in nutritients.
Go fresh, or go frozen!

i'm having a harder time finding nice produce lately too, tomatoes and peppers are slim pickin's.
but yeah frozen is generally better for you i think, but i use canned sometimes for convenience sake. usually just corn and potatoes, other veggies i get fresh if i can. i just find frozen corn really tasteless. but just use it as an opportunity to try other fresh veggies that you don't normally get, a lot of the things i don't usually buy still look fresh in comparison to the stuff i do buy, so i'm thinking i should try some different things over the winter.

hydrochloric acid? that's a new one to me. i use a natural water-based fruit and veggie wash. you could probably drink the stuff safely if you wanted to, and it's relatively cheap

LF - Canned potatoes??? I've never heard of that! Sounds funny.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you one way to preserve some of the taste of frozen corn (and baby peas too) is to run lukewarm water over them in a colander, and let them thaw, then blanch them in boiling water for just a few seconds.

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately, there is only one brand of frozen soup available at my local grocery store and two flavors that don't contain animal products.
I do normally pack my food...just looking for convenient options as I carry so much stuff it looks like I'm preparing to hike across America every time I leave for the train in the morning.
Thanks much for the tip, Poesia. I do buy veggie wash and it is expensive.
And please, anyone out there, lemme know of any suggested reading material on vitamins -specifically when/why they lose their potency.


Benevolent Babe

canned potatoes rock! they're cooked and peeled small white potatoes, you just drain the water and throw them in a frying pan, or however else you want to prepare them. can get them whole or sliced, sliced ones fried with onion and mushrooms are my specialty, but i also discovered whole ones slowly cooked with onion and herbs and a bit of liquid, in a covered pan, are really yummy.

I'm in Ohio and I can find places with good veggies for cheap, too. Do you have any Marc's in your area? They are all over the place here and have fruits, food and veggies, too. I take the bus there. I eat canned kidney beans, and blackeyed peas. There still is some protein in them if they are loaded with salt. There are some salt free veggies in the cans, too. But I usually eat fresh veggies. I don't care for frozen ones for some reason. They don't have much taste to me. My mom loves them, though.

Like alot of people already said it is better to have fresh veggies or fruit. The canned foods (atleast the canned fruits) have alot of added sugar also. And not as many nutrients.

When I eat canned kidney beans, I thoroughly rinse them off to reduce the amount of sodium I am consuming. Probably a lot of it has seeped into the beans themselves, though.

LF frozen corn varies considerably by brand. One of my local supermarkets has frozen local corn!!! It is delicious. They happen to pack a yellow and white variety -- but flavor has nothing to do with color.

The best tasting US national brand is Green giant niblets. For some reason their on-the-cob tastes fresher than cut. Cutting the kernals causes them to de compse faster than if they are left on the cob. But get Green giant, not birds eye.

They all lie on the package in re to sugar levels, acc to my taste tests. Also, organic frozen sw corn is prob not really organic, and usually sells solder, so stock is older, and more tasteless.

Waldbaums-A&P Master Choice brand Gold and Peral whole kernal bi-color variety froxzen corn is the ONE to get. It is also the only one i've seen with a "best before [date]" legend on it, with the date in English rather than in code. But of course you must get it at least 6 months before the nominal best-before date. In reality, if it says best before jul 2003, that means it starts getting dry and freezer-tasting after Jan 2003. Corn dated Jul 2003 starts appearing in stores in Aug 2002. So I'd guess they are picked in July and dated 12 months ahead. Best to buy it within 6 months of being picked and frozen.

No other brand i've seen has a decipherable date. This can be more important than anything.

Distributed by Compass foods, montvale new jersey. Grown in Canada!

Avoid supersweet varieties (not always labelled as such, tho) of sw corn. They are super-chewy and lacking in flavor notes. Sugar is far from the only thing that affects taste.

"When I eat canned kidney beans, I thoroughly rinse them off to reduce the amount of sodium I am consuming. Probably a lot of it has seeped into the beans themselves, though."

Whenever you do that you are also reducing the amount of protein, starch, and micronutrients in the beans. Plus, unless they are packed in the water they are cooked in (which I don't think they are, judging by taste), this has already been done for you once (had its nutrients rinsed away) by the manufacturer. Canned beans are useless. You must get fresh succulent beans, or dry beans and cook them and freeze them. Frozen beans are not available ubiquitously, except for limas, which make me retch.

Yum writes: "LF - Canned potatoes??? I've never heard of that! Sounds funny."

One of the most revolting food product in existence.

"Fresh" potatoes are so ubiquitously avail, and so easy to prepare, that canned potatoes don't make much sense, anywhere. Even the worst fresh potatoes are better than the best canned.

Murtherfore, potatoes have a long shelf life during the winter. They will sit in your closet in a paper bag, for months, without deteriorating. Dust them with a little chemical sprout-preventer (baking soda) to prevent them from sprouting. Or refrigerate them. Yes, they get sweeter when refrigerated, and sprout slower, if at all. I prefer them sweeter, tho most people apparently don't. Their texture improves too, as they "age."

Soilman..while we are on the subject. I've heard that sprouted potatoes can make you sick if you eat them. I heard it a long time ago and can't really remember where, but I always pitch my taters that have sprouts. Is this true?

The sprouts themselves have high levels of nightshade chemicals, which are mildly toxic. However the chemicals are decomposed by heat, and removed by cutting out the sprouts. It is sufficient to simply not eat the sprouts. Cut them out before cooking the potato. Do not eat raw potato. Do not eat potatoes that have been exposed to full-spectrum light for a period of time, and have become green as a result. This causes the tater to manufacture the chemicals. Generally most people can tolerate such chemicals anyway, in the amounts they might get if they accidently ate a few sprouts, without getting sick. They might feel a little floaty, that's all. Slightly stimulated. Kinda like caffeine. Only large concentrated doses will make you "really sick." Don't eat the leaves or stems of potato plants, or any green parts of potato plants. You can conceivably die from eating large quanties. Tho most likely you will just feel ghastly ill and vomit. Tho if you are old or debilitated it could raise your blood pressure to precipitate a stroke.

Just cut out the spouts, and if you see any "greening" cut that out too. But if you forget you won't die. You'll just, if you're lucky, be floating around on a belladonna cloud for a while (most people get nauseous -- if you throw up, no cloud for you).

Soilman,
What exactly happens to people who eat raw potatoes? When I was a kid, I spent the night at a friend's house, and in the morning her mom was making mashed potatoes. My friend begged some pieces of peeled raw potatoes off of her; I tried one bite of the raw potato and decided my friend must be nuts to like it. My friend and her two sisters habitually ate raw potatoes. I haven't seen them in years to know if they are healthy or suffering nasty side effects.

I once ate a small piece of raw potato just to see what it tasted like and can't recall it doing anything bad to me. Never ate a whole one raw. yuk. I've undercooked them at times but they did not harm me. But I always have cut out the sprouts and the green parts and rotten parts because it was just unappealing to me. Yet, I have often boiled them with the skins on and ate them that way because I heard the skin is nutritious. I keep them in the frig. and they seem to be the last veggie I eat in there. So they are not my favorite but okay.

Soilman,
Yesterday I was at a cousin's birthday party, and somehow the topic of eating raw potatoes came up. I remembered that you'd said that eating raw potatoes was unhealthy, and I unwisely repeated that. When they asked me "Why?", I had no idea. I referred back to you, saying that I heard it from an online person who seems to know an awful lot about fruits, veggies, gardening, and related health issues. Then they asked me how I know that you know what you're talking about, and the only thing I could think to say was, "Well, isn't the same true offline? How do I know that Aunt Marie is right when she says that eating raw potatoes isn't unhealthy?" From there the conversation moved to completely bashing any information found on the internet. I found an excuse to leave the room.

My mother also said eating potato sprouts is toxic. Therefore it must be true. :)

But so does Medline:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002875.htm

Originally posted by skylark
Then they asked me how I know that you know what you're talking about, and the only thing I could think to say was, "Well, isn't the same true offline?

If you've not already, check out Soilman's website. There's a link to it on his profile. Very interesting stuff. I fully trust his knowledge in this area.

This is what has truly saved me this winter: the veggies I froze during the summer that I got from my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares. I belong to our local community supported organic farming coalition. Our shares begin in May and last until November. Every week during that time, I pick up a crate that, most weeks, is overflowing with local organic veggies and sometimes fruits. Of course, I only cook for two, so most of my veggies would go to waste if we didn't take steps to preserve them in some way. This summer, I steamed and froze tons of green beans, corn, squash, sweet peas, spinach, etc. Now all I have to do is thaw those babies out and enjoy...

I haven't quite conquered the world of canning. That'll be next summer. That way I can hang on to lots of my yummy tomaters.

Join your local CSA! :D

P.S. I made the tastiest potato and spinach soup last night.

My family has always frozen and canned fruit, but hardly any vegetables. I wonder why. We always did tomato sauce and spaghetti sauce, but most of our garden veggies were eaten fresh. We always did frozen blueberries, strawberries, black raspberries, apples, pears, peaches, and others, plus we always make blueberry jam, strawberry jam, apple butter, black raspberry jam, and usually some black rasp/strawberry combos. We eat great fresh veggies in the summer and early fall, but during the winter and spring its back to the canned veggies. They're less expensive than the frozen veggies, which is why I think my mom buys them. I'll see what I can accomplish from a talk with her.

MRB,
I took a quick peek at soilman's website, and I'll have to go back later when I have more time. School's back in session so Skylark is one busy girl.