Canned foods have their place in a healthy diet, especially during a pandemic. They can make it so much easier to maintain a high intake of nutritious fruits and vegetables while limiting risk of food spoilage during a time when you want to make less frequent trips to the market. You might even say canned foods are where convenience, nutrition, and low cost intersect.
The Canning Process
Produce is typically canned just hours after picking. The fruit or vegetable is minimally processed in different ways depending on the type of produce. Its washed, peeled, cut, pitted, or blanched, as necessary.
Once the food is ready, cans are filled with water or juice, filled with the food, and sealed shut. After sealing, cans are quickly heated to a specific temperature for a specific amount of time. This helps kill of any harmful microorganisms and prevent food spoilage. Finally, cans are quickly cooled.
Benefits of Canned Foods
Fresh produce is great! Since it may cost more and is more perishable, however, canned foods help when budget and time are a limiting factor. Also, some produce is not available year round but can be in canned form. Canned foods help save some time when trying to prepare more homecooked meals since not every step needs to be made from scratch! For example, with canned beans you no longer have to factor in the time it takes to soak the beans and simmer them for an hour or more. Produce used for canning is picked at peak freshness and quickly processed thereafter for canning. (In fact, you'll find most canning facilities not far from the fields produce comes from). This ensures optimal nutrition and flavor. During a pandemic, they can be especially useful in extending your grocery list an extra week or so even if fresh produce inventory is low in your fridge.
Does canning compromise nutrition?
Many are surprised to find that, nutritionally speaking, canned produce is comparable to fresh or frozen foods. In fact, a 2007 study found that both freezing and canning preserve nutritional value in food. As previously mentioned, produce is canned at peak freshness. Therefore, canning locks in these nutrients at their peak freshness. Since they are not exposed to oxygen, they can stay stable and unoxidized for the duration of their established shelf life. Most fat-soluble vitamins, minerals, carbs, proteins, and fat remain unchanged by the cannng process. Some water-soluble vitamins (vitamins B and C) may be slightly reduced during the heating step of the canning process. However, that same heating step may lead to the release and increase of antioxidant content, especially of beta-carotene and lycopene.
In reality, fresh produce is not immune to losing nutritional value. Nutrients can be lost during transport in fresh produce, too. For example, fresh spinach can lose up to 75% of its vitamin C content within a week of harvesting, even when properly refrigerated. Take tomatoes as another example. Canned tomatoes have more lycopene than fresh tomatoes. Half a cup of canned tomatoes can provide up to 11.8 mg of lycopene. One medium fresh tomato provides about 3.7 mg. When it comes to vitamin C content, most is still stable and maintained during the shelf life of a canned product. In fact, canned tomatoes, spinach, oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, apricots, and pineapple are rich sources of vitamin C.
Even fiber is well preserved during canning. Interestingly, researchers from the University of Illinois Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition found that the heating step during the canning process can make fiber more soluble and, thus, more useful to the body for its cholesterol-lowering and digestion-enhancing properties. Even canned meat and fish has adequate nutrition. In fact, canned salmon has more calcium than fresh salmon.
Do Canned Foods Lose Sensory Appeal?
Researchers were on top of this question, too. The University of Massachusetts conducted a study to compare the sensory appeal of recipes prepared with canned, fresh or frozen ingredients. Study subjects sampled foods blindly, not knowing whether any ingredients were canned or not. They rated recipes according to their appearance, color, flavor, texture, aroma, aftertaste and overall acceptability. A fruit smoothie and vegetable pizza prepared with canned foods rated higher on appearance, aroma and texture when compared to fresh and frozen counterparts. A bean burrito recipe rated equal to the same recipe made with dried, cooked ingredients on taste, appearance, flavor and overall acceptability. Numerous other recipes were prepared. However, the main finding was that it was possible to make appealing meals with canned foods, too.
Can Responsibly
Does this mean that you should replace all produce with canned varieties now? It's better to be balanced. Try combining all forms of food - canned, frozen, and fresh - as circumstances permit. When choosing canned foods, aim for fruits canned in water or its own juice instead of in light or heavy syrup to avoid added sugars. Choose canned veggies without added salt. Remember to always avoid cans with dents, cracks, leaks, or bulges. There may be bacterial growth, especially of one that causes botulism.
Can Creatively
Combine different canned fruits and add them to a yogurt parfait or a salad.
Use canned veggies like mushrooms, olives and peppers as a pizza topping.
Add a can of chickpeas to a stew, a salad, or a soup.
Add canned peas, veggies, and beans to a homemade soup or stew.
Instead of sugary syrups, top cereals, pancakes, or waffles with canned fruits.
Freeze cannd fruit then puree it for a quick, homemade sorbet recipe.
Make an omega-3 rich snack with canned salmon and whole grainc rackers.
Make a black bean soup with canned black bean.
Spruce up your salad with a can of beets.
Toss a few pounds of chicken with several cans of salsa verde and slow cook it for a quick, easy dinner protein.
Use canned refried beans on your taco night.
Toss canned olives in your omelet, salad, or pasta.
The possibilities are endless...