Is cooked food your healthy choice?
Just open an e-commerce App, enter pre-cooked or fast-food dishes and Aauto's faster dishes, and a large number of attractive pictures of dishes will pop up: fish-flavored shredded pork, braised pork with plum vegetables, cumin lamb chops and vegetable spring rolls, with prices ranging from ten to dozens. Link? 65438+ million+? Comments, different brands of web pages one after another, as if overnight, prefabricated dishes have become a standing item in many consumers' shopping carts.
Precast dishes are convenient, but can you give consideration to beauty and health while enjoying convenience? Can it meet people's high demand for nutrition? The reporter interviewed relevant experts in this regard.
You won't know until you taste it.
According to the standards issued by China Cuisine Association, what dishes are prepared? A finished or semi-finished dish made of one or more agricultural products as the main raw materials through pretreatment (such as cutting, stirring, pickling, rolling, shaping and seasoning). ) and/or precooking (such as frying, frying, roasting, boiling, steaming, etc.). ) and prepackaged? .
Professor Fan Zhihong from the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, College of Food Science, China Agricultural University introduced. Prefabricated vegetable products are divided into four types: ready-to-eat, hot food, cooked food and prefabricated food. Fast food is a product that can be eaten directly after opening. Instant food is a kind of cooked or semi-cooked product, which can be eaten after simple reheating. Fast food is a product that can be eaten after the main raw materials have completed a certain processing process. Instant food is a product that can be used in dishes after simple processing such as cleaning and cutting. ?
Whether the cooked food is delicious or not may not be known until you taste it yourself. Everyone has different taste preferences, and even the evaluation of the same dish is mixed. Take a brand of crispy meat as an example, some people say? The sweet potato flour outside tastes chewy, and the meat inside is delicious? Someone said? Thick powder and fishy meat. Is the pepper intact? .
After the actual experience, you can taste that the taste of prefabricated dishes and home-cooked dishes is different. Why can prefabricated dishes make a taste that home cooking can't? Fan Zhihong explained that chefs participated in the research and development of prefabricated dishes, and rich seasonings made the prefabricated dishes rich in flavor. There may be seven or eight or more spices in a dish of prepared vegetables, such as cardamom, thyme, rosemary and basil. Generally, cooking at home doesn't need so much seasoning. However, experts point out that the richness of the prepared dishes is not entirely related to additives, because many spices are natural. Although there are additives in seasonings such as fish sauce and soy sauce, they are also used in home cooking.
There are also differences between prepared dishes and dishes sold in restaurants.
In the interview, the reporter learned that many factors, such as production technology, freezing technology and reheating method, will affect the taste of prefabricated dishes. Some organizations have conducted sensory evaluation on aroma, taste and comparison before and after cooking of more than 50 products from different manufacturers. The results showed that the degree of flavor reduction of meat dishes was higher than that of fish and shrimp, and that of boiled products was higher than that of fried products.
According to Zhang Chunhui, chief scientist of the innovation team of the Institute of Agricultural Products Processing of China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, there is a quality gap between the products made and sold by chefs and the industrialized products, which shows that there are still several key technologies to be overcome in the process of pre-cooked dishes processing in order to achieve the same effect of industrialization. What's the first one? Pot gas? Question? Pot gas? It means that food raw materials produce flavor through thermal reaction, and industrialization needs to analyze and reduce the flavor formation process; The second is quick-freezing and fresh-keeping technology. At present, root vegetables such as pepper and green bamboo shoots can keep green and shape, but some green leafy vegetables still need to be broken through. The third is reheating technology. According to the product description, the quality recovery of the prepared dishes can reach 80% ~ 90%.
? How much salt is there? It is also a problem that consumers reflect more. In this regard, Yang Xiaoguang, vice chairman of China Nutrition Society, pointed out that this is a market behavior. ? The market needs to meet the demand, and the taste of salt and oil is often more attractive to consumers. If enterprises produce less oil and salt, their sales will be low and they will not make money. So the most important thing is to cultivate consumers' consumption preferences. ?
Fan Zhihong also reminded that a day's meal is composed of a variety of foods, and one food cannot determine the quality of the meal. The problems of less vegetables, more salt and more oil in ready-to-eat and instant pre-cooked vegetables can be solved by matching foods with less oil and less salt.
Nutrition is lost, but it doesn't mean there is no nutrition.
Do the cooked vegetables have nutrients? Is it healthy to eat prefabricated vegetables? This is a topic that many consumers care about.
Wang Chen, who works in Beijing, often eats prepared dishes. She is worried that the process of secondary heating and refrigeration may cause nutrient loss, and the additives in it will also have adverse effects on health.
? After heat treatment, the main losses in vegetables are vitamins and a small amount of minerals, and there is no great loss of dietary fiber. As long as the meat products are fresh and of good quality, protein will not lose much after heating. ? Xu, deputy director of the Clinical Nutrition Department of Tiantan Hospital, said.
? In fact, whether it is home cooking or factory processing, it will cause the loss of nutrients. For example, heating will lead to the loss of vitamin C. When cooking, vitamin C will generally lose 20% ~ 30% or even less. If the stew is bad, the loss will exceed half. When fried, there will be oxidation loss, the cells of vegetables will be destroyed, and the air will directly contact the nutrients in the cells, which will cause the loss of carotene and anthocyanins. ? Fan Zhihong introduced that, theoretically, compared with the food made by high-quality fresh natural ingredients and eaten immediately, the nutritional value of the food stored or frozen at room temperature for several months after making will decrease to some extent. And heating it again after finishing should cause more nutrient loss than heating it once.
But we can't generalize. Fan Zhihong told reporters: if it is done well, prefabricated vegetables can also have a high nutritional preservation rate; If it is not done well, even if it is processed on site, it will cause a high loss rate of nutrients. ?
? Pretreatment components are not necessarily without nutritional value. ? Fan Zhihong explained that research data from different countries proved that most nutrients can still be preserved in reasonable frozen ingredients. Therefore, in European and American dietary guidelines, frozen vegetables and fresh vegetables are classified as one category, which is also to encourage consumers to eat.
Such as frozen tender peas, tender beans, carrots and sweet corn kernels. It has become a part of daily cooking materials and is used in families, restaurants and canteens. Canned tomatoes, canned mushrooms, canned corn shoots and other ingredients often appear in various restaurant dishes. ? Quick-frozen shredded pork, fish fillet, shrimp, etc. They are all processed and can be cooked after opening the bag. There is no greater nutritional loss than buying frozen fish to cook at home. ? Fan Zhihong said.
The Dietary Guidelines for China Residents (2022) proposes that people should contain vegetables in their diet and ensure that they eat no less than 300 grams of fresh vegetables every day. Obviously, this is difficult to achieve when they only eat prepared vegetables.
To this end, Fan Zhihong suggested? While eating prefabricated vegetables, you can mix your own vegetables. You can eat tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and so on raw without cooking conditions. You can also steam pumpkins and vegetables with simple cooking tools at home, and you can eat fresh vegetables in just a few minutes. ?
? Pre-cooked vegetables are preserved by disinfection. Pre-cooked vegetables are packed in composite aluminum bags. The bacteria inside have been killed and the bacteria outside can't get in. Without microorganisms, it will not rot, so it does not need public attention. However, the safety of each product depends on the stability of its component quality, strict production management and reasonable process parameters. ? Fan Zhihong said, just like ordering food in a restaurant, we are not sure whether it is safe enough, but it depends on the quality of raw materials in the store, whether the management of kitchen hygiene in the store is strict and whether the chef's operation is in place.
People may have another worry. Like leftovers, prefabricated vegetables will produce carcinogens if they are stored for a long time. Fan Zhihong said? Nitrite is the result of microbial activities. Nitrite in fresh green leafy vegetables is as low as a few milligrams per kilogram, which can be ignored from the perspective of food safety. However, during unreasonable storage, nitrate reductase in plants will reduce nitrate to nitrite. Cooking will kill enzymes in plants, but some microorganisms will also reduce nitrate to nitrite. Nitrite can synthesize carcinogenic nitrosamines with protein decomposition products in the stomach. Therefore, both food corruption and nitrite exceeding the standard are mainly caused by microorganisms. Therefore, in food processing, antibacterial is the first priority. Sterilization and sealed packaging can kill the microorganisms inside the dish, but the microorganisms outside can't get in. As long as the microorganisms do not exceed the standard, the prepared vegetables will not produce nitrite during storage. Open the bag and heat it before eating. Although the air and tableware also contain a small amount of bacteria, food is eaten in the stomach before bacteria over-multiply and produce nitrite, so there is no need to worry about nitrite. ?
Convenience is the core competitiveness, and the choice depends on the life scene.
Cooking by yourself requires not only a cooking place and various cookers, but also ingredients such as grain, oil, rice, meat, poultry, eggs and milk. It takes an hour or two to wash, cut, stew and fry. Can the convenience of prefabricated vegetables fill its nutrition? Defects? ?
According to the reporter's investigation, due to the different degree of pretreatment, the complexity of different types of pre-cooked dishes requiring secondary processing is also different. Ready-to-eat prefabricated vegetables can be eaten directly, that is, the secondary processing method of hot prefabricated vegetables is relatively simple, while ready-to-eat or pre-cooked prefabricated vegetables are relatively troublesome and require certain cooking skills. In particular, ready-made prefabricated dishes need to be processed by themselves, and the time will be longer. Some research results show that the dishes that need simple stir-frying can be completed in a few minutes, while the dishes with complicated procedures take about half an hour or even longer. It takes nearly two hours to thaw the six dishes, prepare the side dishes and cook them with fire. A table for 20 minutes? There is a certain gap.
However, compared with the complicated dishes cooked by yourself from beginning to end, cooking and preparing prefabricated dishes by yourself can really save a lot of time. It is for this reason that the New Year's Eve dinner has also become the main consumption scene of prefabricated dishes.
? Buy semi-finished dishes for New Year's Eve dinner in the past two years. I can steam a dish in 10 minutes and then fry it. It takes about two hours to prepare a dinner for six people with two or three home-cooked dishes. A few years ago, the whole family got together for New Year's Eve dinner. Usually, after lunch, they begin to be busy with the New Year's Eve dinner. No one can be idle except the old and children. ? Jiang, 58, said that although the taste of some dishes is not satisfactory, it really makes the New Year's Eve dinner? Simplify the complex? .
? The function of prefabricated dishes is actually to give me one more choice. If you want to hurry, you can eat self-heating hot pot, and you can finish it in 10 minutes. Order takeout for a change, but it takes at least half an hour from point to eat. If I have time, I will cook a dish by myself. It won't take long, but cleaning up the kitchen is more troublesome. ? Wang Chen said that she looked at the time first, and then at the meal? Are you lazy? Usually eating is relatively simple, and sometimes she cooks a big meal on a whim on weekends. The existence of prefabricated dishes makes her switch between fast and slow.
? In view of the huge public demand for efficient catering, it is expected that the market for prefabricated dishes will only grow. As consumers, we wait for full market competition in this industry, and then more and better products will appear to meet our high requirements for convenience, delicious, safety and nutrition. ? Fan Zhihong said.
? Delicious is the premise of the rapid development of prefabricated vegetables, convenience is the core competitiveness of prefabricated vegetables, food safety is the chassis and guarantee, and nutrition is the pursuit of prefabricated vegetables industry. ? In Wang Chunhui's view, family kitchen, cooked food and catering industry should perform their respective duties, learn from each other and jointly solve the food problem on the table.