storing the summer's bounty... to be used later raw?

[martygreene]

I grow a lot of my own food, and prefer to use my own produce over storebought whenever possible. I currently can, freeze, and dry a lot of the fruits of my garden, but have recently started eating more raw than previously and am now rethinking my storage methods. Can veg be frozen to be used raw later, and have them still be as beneficial, or am I

Comments

[ppunkgoddess]

generally speaking freezing alters the structures of the cells in the fruits and vegetables. Basically, as is easily observable with ice-cubes etc when water freezes it expands. When you freeze raw fruits and vegies (which are mostly water) the water expands (as it is wont to do) and it busts open the cells, and it all leaks out leaving a pulpy mess in a pool of watery-ness.
Par-boiling some vegetables seems to prevent this happening eg: potatoes, spinach, beans, etc.
Basically freezing is not the answer if you want stuff to eat raw afterwards, it just isn't going to work, sorry. You can totallyl freeze tonnes of stuff if you don't intend to eat it raw though, like another poster said, putting it into other things such as soups, stews, curries, muffins, casseroles etc is a good way of not letting good produce go to waste.

You could try freeze-drying foods, but I have no idea how this would be done.

Perhaps you could consider doing the raw-vegan stuff during the months you have access to high-quality super-fresh foods (when they are packed with vitamins and nutrients etc) and then (depending on your climate) either growing more cold-weather stuff (such as potatoes, spinach, brocolli, cauliflower, kale etc etc) and augmenting this with variety from your local produce store? You may not be able to be a year-round raw vegan, but you could be a seasonal raw if you planned it right.

HTH.