Will the quick freezing process harm people’s health?

As the pace of life accelerates, people's pursuit of health is also increasing. Many people do not want to rely too much on "takeout", but they do not have time to cook healthy and delicious meals themselves, so quick-frozen food has become a compromise. Many people can't help but question whether the food produced by this process is healthy or not? This article will explain to you how quick-freezing technology is achieved, and whether the food produced by quick-freezing technology is really harmful to health?

Quick freezing technology is a way of preserving food. As the name implies, it is faster than ordinary freezing methods. In fact, it is not only a difference in time. The ordinary freezing method is to place the food in an environment below zero degrees and slowly freeze the food until the core temperature of the food reaches the freezing requirement (generally about 10 degrees Celsius below zero). However, this method often takes a long time, and it takes about several hours or even more than ten hours to achieve. Compared with this freezing method, quick freezing generally uses the same amount of electricity, but it can often be required within fifteen minutes through a strong blowing continuous quick freezing device, a tunnel freezing device, a contact freezing device or a direct freezing device. After the food is quick-frozen, the growth and metabolism of bacteria and other microorganisms contained in it are inhibited due to the low temperature, so the food can remain non-corrupt for a certain period of time.

Compared with ordinary freezing technology, quick freezing technology can better preserve the flavor and nutritional value of food. Ordinary refrigeration methods take a long time to refrigerate, which causes the crystals formed by the water in the cells of the food to be too large, thereby destroying the cell structure of the food, and some cell fluid is exposed during the thawing process, so the original flavor and nutrition in the food are lost. Quick freezing technology takes less time to freeze, so when the food is frozen from the outside to the inside, the water inside and outside the cells will form smaller needle-shaped crystals, reducing damage to the cells. It also has higher reversibility in the thawing process, thereby reducing the loss of cell fluid and maintaining the flavor and nutrition of the food to a greater extent.

In fact, eating quick-frozen food does not harm our health. Many people are concerned about whether quick-frozen food contains preservatives. However, as mentioned above, quick-freezing is safe by inhibiting the growth of microorganisms at low temperatures rather than adding preservatives. Therefore, the view that quick-frozen food is unhealthy is completely unscientific.

This article was scientifically reviewed by Ruan Guangfeng, director of the business department of the China Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center.