Fruits are fantastic. They are juicy, nutritious, medicinal — and come in all shapes, textures and sizes so you’re never short for choice.
We know how advantageous fruits are to our overall human health but we get a little sceptical when faced with different variations of fruit. It can even feel like there’s a gravity-moving internal conflict when we try to decide between fresh, freeze, dried or freeze-dried fruits.
We don’t always realise that our fruit-eating habit is not a zero-sum game. No matter the range of variation of fruits we take — especially freeze-dried fruits — we’ll still be eating healthy.
Freeze-dried fruits characterise the ability of fruits to deliver all the things we love about them in a refreshingly subtle form. Freeze-dried food perfectly manoeuvres the fine line between nutrient-draining drying and the thawing effect of freezing.
In this post, we’ll discuss what freeze-drying fruits mean and help you understand all the many benefits we can get from freeze-dried foods.
What are freeze-dried fruits?
Freeze-dried fruits — and freeze-dried food — are the end product of the freeze-drying process. In freeze-drying (lyophilisation), a process referred to as sublimation is used to remove moisture from frozen raw products.
A freeze-drying process looks something like this:
The food (or fruit) is first frozen. Then, it is transferred to a low-pressure vacuum that allows any ice in the frozen fruit to transform into vapour without turning into water at any point. This part is scientifically referred to as sublimation.
When the process is done, the fruit is completely (or almost entirely) devoid of water and that allows the fruit to maintain its original structure. The freeze drying technology has been so successful — combining both the strengths of freezing and drying while eliminating their weaknesses — that the market for global freeze-dried food is expected to be valued at over $67 billion by the end of the year.
We’ll take a break from all the science and business talk now and delve right into why freeze-dried fruits are not only beneficial to you, the can also potentially have life-changing effects.
Like the Internet’s kind of life-changing. The kind that makes your life a lot easier.
Benefits of freeze-dried fruits
You get to have all the nutrients in the fruit
Food processing is usually associated with nutrients loss — but not freeze-dried foods. Medical research indicates that freeze-dried fruits maintain more than 90% of their nutritional value. Usually, freeze-dried fruits take minimal hits to their Vitamins A & C but nutritional experts have confirmed that the loss is so mild, it is practically unnoticeable.
Freeze-dried fruits contain high levels of antioxidants and fibre. Its richness in these nutrients is why the American Institute for Cancer Research recommends freeze-dried fruits as a way to provide “anti-oxidants and phytochemicals” that are not readily available anywhere else.
The only thing freeze-dried fruits lose is water. Nutrients remain a-plenty.
Freeze-dried fruits can last a helluva long time
The shelf life of freeze-dried fruits is amazing. The nine lives of a cat do not compare. Freeze-dried fruits retain their freshness for so long, it’s become the staple ‘space food’ for astronauts looking to carry a piece of Planet Earth with them.
The freeze-drying process is really all about the complete removal of water from the fruit. Little or no water — around 3% moisture — helps to significantly reduce the chance of bacterial growth. That’s how it stays fresh for extended periods.
Another reason why freeze-dried foods have a “super-lasting” power is connected to the absence of oxygen. Containers holding freeze-dried fruits are either completely oxygen-free or have oxygen absorbents.
Compare to dehydrate, frozen or canned food, freeze-dried food dominate the shelf-life game. These space foods can last up to 25 years. The most dehydrated foods can stay usable is a little over four years.
With freeze-dried fruits, you rest assured that you do not have to keep tabs on the time.
Freeze-dried fruits taste great
Freeze-dried fruits may be processed but they still taste as delicious as any fresh fruit. Maybe even more delicious.
Through the freeze-drying process, moisture is removed so fast that there is little change to the look and feel of the fruit. Dehydrated foods, on one hand, lose taste because the heat lasts longer during processing. Freeze-dried fruits, on the other hand, are processed with just little heat and so they maintain all of their original flavour and sweet tastefulness.
Both fresh fruits and freeze-dried fruits can look so similar, it’s hard to distinguish them till you taste them. Even after tasting, it’s only the crunchiness of the freeze-dried fruits that distinguishes it from the fresh ones.
Freeze-dried foods love to travel
If you are a lightweight traveller (who isn’t), you’ll love freeze-dried foods. This is perhaps the best feature of freeze-dried foods for space travel. That’s why many refer to freeze-dried food as space food.
On Apollo Missions, freeze-dried foods remain the preferred space staple. This space food is extremely light and occupies very little space. They don’t need to be refrigerated and can be easily packed into appropriately-sized containers.
Freeze-dried fruits are easy to prepare
One other great feature about space food is that when rehydrated, they can return to fresh food. This is possible through the process of rehydration.
Rehydration entails adding water back to the mix when you’re ready to consume them. In a matter of minutes, the freeze-dried fruit will be reformed while retaining all of the original flavours. This allows you to stock up your fruits supply on fewer occasions and stop yourself from the hassle of weekly grocery shopping.
Freeze-dried foods not only makes decay impossible, but they also make freshness look easy.
If that’s not life-changing, we don’t know what is!
Freeze-dried foods are mess-free
Since there’s no water left in freeze-dried fruits, there’s little chance of dealing with the mess that comes from fresh fruits. Freeze-dried food can inhabit a space without leaving any trace.
100% Natural
The freeze-drying process may be technologically enabled but freeze-dried fruits are still as natural as your treat-loving pet.
There’s nothing added and little lost in freeze-dried fruits. There is no need for preservatives and they are gluten-free.
Do freeze-dried fruits contain more sugar than fresh fruits?
No. Freeze-dried fruits contain the exact amount of sugar as fresh fruits.
The thing to note is that lack of moisture makes freeze-dried foods shrink in size. This makes the concentration of sugar more in the smaller-sized freeze-dried fruit.
So when you measure sugar levels per unit, you’ll discover that the sugar levels are the same thing. Only concentration levels will differ.
On the other hand, if you measure sugar levels per gram, you’re likely to add more freeze-dried fruits to match the weight of the fresh fruit and that’ll mean higher sugar levels for the freeze-dried fruit.
So, convinced yet?
Here, at MarsRoots, there’s great conviction backed up by evidence that freeze-dried foods are endowed with many life-changing benefits.
We live and breathe freeze-dried food and you can trust us when we say that freeze-dried fruits and food have come to make your life so much better.
Same nutrients. Less weight. Little mess. Extended shelf life. Travel-friendly. Space food!
It’s like we can’t imagine a world without freeze-dried food. Click here to learn more about our freeze-dried products.
We are launching soon our freeze-dried fruits that contain 97% of their nutritional value, be the first to get them on our launch date!
One Last Thing:
If you’ve ever wondered what astronauts eat, or whether space food is really different from what you enjoy on Earth, check our Amazon page HERE and test it yourself! Don't miss the opportunity to taste real astronaut food.
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