Are fresh vegetables better than frozen or canned?

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Are fresh vegetables better than frozen or canned? - Universal-Sci​

In the supermarket, we can commonly choose between fresh, frozen, canned, or jarred vegetables. Is there a difference in nutritional value between these types? And if so, which is the best?

Why vegetables are healthy​

Vegetables contain essential nutrients such as vitamins, fibers, and minerals, as well as a wide variety of healthy bioactive substances such as anthocyanins and flavonoids, which are known to have beneficial anti-inflammatory effects.

In addition, vegetables incorporate a large amount of water. This makes them relatively voluminous compared to the total amount of calories they contain, which helps you to feel full faster. In the end, it means that you tend to consume less of other foods (that may contain more calories).

Fresh vegetables aren’t always as fresh as you may think​

From the moment vegetables are harvested, their nutritional values decrease. Vegetables are still alive after harvest which means that all kinds of metabolic processes are still active within the plant tissue. After harvest, those cells will try to survive at the expense of various nutritional substances that the plant can no longer produce. The reserves get depleted, so to say.

Another factor that plays a role after harvest is exposure to oxygen from the air, which negatively affects the nutritional value of fresh vegetables. When in soil, plants can defend themselves against this effect by creating all kinds of anti-oxidants, but after harvest, these substances are slowly depleted.