Why is frozen food losing substance when defrosting?
The frozen process helps preserve food by slowing down or completely stopping the activity of bacteria, enzymes and chemical reactions.
Busy life makes many families choose to use frozen foods to prepare food.
However, when we defrost, these activities are restored.This means that the water molecules in food begins to move back, carrying soluble nutrients such as vitamins and minerals.
According to nutritionist Le Thi Hoa (Research and Nutrition Consulting Institute), factors affecting the loss of substance include:
Disoxification time: The longer the time of exposure to the room temperature, the stronger the loss of quality.Water molecules have a lot of time to move and bring nutrients out.
Devality temperature: The higher the temperature, the faster the molecules move, the faster the loss of substance.Dissolence at room temperature will lose more substance than defrosting in the refrigerator.
Food: Each type of food has different structure and nutrient content.Foods high in water and water -soluble vitamins (like vegetables) often lose more substances than protein -rich foods (like meat).
Missing method: Dissolence by microwave increases the temperature very quickly, causing water molecules to move strongly and lose more nutrients than other methods.
Initial food quality: Foods that have passed many frozen and defrosts will lose a part of nutrients.
Choosing the right defrosting method will not cause food to lose nutrients and bacterial infections.
In addition, when frozen, the water in the food turns into ice crystals, breaking the cell structure.When defrosting, the crystals melt, causing cell damage and leak nutrients.Not to mention, exposure to air during defrosting increases oxidation, especially for unsaturated fats.This reduces nutritional value and changes the taste of food.If defrosting at room temperature for a long time, bacteria will have conditions to grow, cause damage and reduce food quality.
How to defrost safely
Also according to Dr. Hoa: When defrosting food, it must be slowly happened because frozen foods are susceptible to breaking, nutrients with water flowing out to reduce the value of food.
Ideally, one day before use should transfer ingredients from the freezer to the cool compartment to defrost.In order not to get water from frozen ice, prepare a plastic bag or a glass bowl ... contain food before putting in the cool compartment, avoiding the situation affecting other food in the refrigerator.
Threasing under the flowing water is also very good: Prepare a pot or bowl, put the meat in, then open the faucet to let the water flow into the bowl.When the water on the faucet slowly flows into the bowl, full of water is over, they will spill and change the water naturally.This is the fastest way to defrost and still ensure the freshness of the meat after processing.
In addition, it can be defrosted with metal because metal is a very strong thermal conductive, so they will also help ice crystals dissolve faster, helping to defrost food, especially all kindsmeat.With this method, just put meat or sandwiches on metal items with a flat surface, after about 10 minutes, the piece of meat will be defrosted and can be used to prepare delicious food immediately.
Some people prefer to defrost with salt and vinegar.This method can be done on both meat or seafood.Vinegar contains a lot of acetic acid to lower the freezing point of water, and salt is an extremely good catalyst that helps thaw quickly and helps reduce bacteria in food.Just prepare a bowl of water, dissolve a little salt and vinegar, then add meat or fish to defrost.
If you do not have time to defrost, you can cook immediately.The ingredients that are cold to bring sudden hot processing do not lose much nutrients, only the most vitamin in vegetables.That's why some foods do not need to thaw before cooking.
Do not freeze food many times because it will cause nutrient loss and create control for bacteria to grow.
In food storage, it is necessary to note that it does not work twice.Because when defrosting food, the crystals dissolve into water, somewhat breaking the cells of the material.When the second frozen frozen, the water formed ice, the creation of the second time caused some nutritional components of the food to go out through cell fluid and ice.Moreover, when defrosting, pathogenic microorganisms also grow rapidly.