Blast freezing is a system freezing in minutes rather than hours. But is frozen food as good as fresh?
Blast freezing is a system freezing in minutes rather than hours. This has great benefits with increased quality and longer storage. Flash freezing was invented by Clarence Birdseye in the early 1900s.
When food is cooked it starts to lose its quality due to bacterial growth. It is therefore important to quickly freeze the food to preserve the taste and appearance and also retain vitamins, goodness, flavor & texture.
During the process of freezing, all the water molecules turn into crystals, the faster the freezing the smaller the crystals and after de-frosting, there will be no loss of liquid, firmness or flavor. Blast freezers are high capacity rapid air freezers with an air temperature of -35°C which quickly blast freeze the meals down to -18°C and guarantees a high quality, better tasting product. A big benefit of blast freezing is that it kills 99% of the bacteria, such as E. coli and therefore this process is cleaner and safer.
Food was preserved by soaking in salt and ice brine until the advent of a mechanical refrigerator. In 1880, the first refrigerated frozen meat cargo was shipped from Australia to Britain. In was at the beginning of 20th century that blast freezing was done by blasting air over the food which was the beginning of the Blast Freezing method.
So is frozen food as good as fresh? well a lot of research and testing has taken place and the answer is that yes it can be. In the case of fresh vegetables the longer they are out of the ground the more they deteriorate so by the time the reach the supermarkets they have already lost something. If they can be quickly frozen when they are defrosted they are very fresh indeed. And for meals if the meal is blast frozen then the end result is a meal that tastes as good as anything that has been freshly prepared.
Blast Freezers are not cheap to and and can be costly to run because they use a high amount of energy. You can however purchase second hand machines on places like Ebay and auctions.
It is now possible to purchase Blast Freezers for home domestic use and companies like Marks Gourmet Kitchen http://www.marks-gk.co.uk/ are providing quality frozen meals delivered to your door. The meals are cooked by hand he same way you would at home. They aim to produce good honest food that can be healthy and nutritious and always fabulously tasty.
