Frozen meat in our impression is "as long as you want" and "it won't be bad anyway", so many people can forget about it after throwing something into the refrigerator, and even can turn over the ingredients that have been released in the refrigerator for a year or two.
There are still many families who are used to purchasing ingredients in large quantities during discount promotions, and then stuffing them into the refrigerator and freezing them, and it doesn't matter if they can't finish eating or forgetting to eat, anyway, "it can't be broken in freezing.".
Is this really the case?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > First, frozen foods also have a "shelf life"? </h1>
In fact, frozen food also has a "shelf life", because the freezer can only do low-temperature refrigeration, and does not have the function of sterilization and disinfection, so refrigeration can only inhibit the growth of bacteria, can not completely eliminate bacteria, even if the activity is inhibited, bacteria have indeed been active in food.
If stored for too long, even if there is no obvious spoilage, deterioration and odor on the surface, the inside of the food has long exceeded the safe eating period and no longer belongs to the category of edible, not only the taste becomes worse, it is not fresh and delicious to eat, but more importantly, the nutritional value has been lost early, especially meat.
Therefore, even if it is refrigerated at low temperatures, the shelf life of food is only extended, which does not mean that it is stored permanently for no time.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="33" >2. What is the "shelf life" of frozen food? </h1>
After knowing that refrigeration also has a shelf life, some people may ask, so how long is this "shelf life"? A year? Half?
This depends on the specific food stored, and the shelf life of different ingredients is also different:
1. Red meat: including pigs, cattle, mutton, etc., is a meat that is eaten more in daily life, and can generally be frozen for 10 to 12 months.
Among them, beef can be preserved longer than pigs and mutton, and lean meat can be stored longer than fat meat.
2. Poultry meat: including chicken, duck, goose, pigeon, etc., this kind of meat is slightly shorter than the preservation time of red meat, generally about 8 to 10 months.
3. Aquatic products: seafood, river fresh, including fish, shrimp, turtles, shellfish, their shelf life is shorter than livestock and poultry meat, basically only about half a year of "life", but it is best to eat within 4 months.
note! The above figures are all based on the pre-treatment of disinfection and sterilization before the food enters the freezer, in general, the things in the homes of ordinary people are not disinfected and sterilized, so the shelf life will be shorter than the food seen on the market, sold as a commodity, and professionally processed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" >3. Repeated thawing of bacteria surge? </h1>
Many families will choose to keep the food refrigerated, and when they want to eat it, they will take it out to defrost it on the same day, eat how much to cut, and then freeze the rest back after cutting.
However, a popular saying has emerged on the Internet recently: if frozen meat is repeatedly thawed, its amount of bacteria will increase by about 15 times.
Is this true?
In fact, on this issue, our CCTV has long conducted professional experiments, and the experimental results also strongly prove that this statement is not a rumor, and the repeated thawing of meat will indeed lead to a large number of bacteria.
Because low-temperature refrigeration can only inhibit the growth of bacteria, can not be completely eliminated, and most of the tenacious bacteria only need about 20 minutes to complete a copy, thawed during that time, the temperature rises, it is a good time for bacteria to multiply.
So if it is repeatedly thawed, the number of bacteria will inevitably explode.
In addition, the food is repeatedly thawed, and the water attached to the food will be repeatedly frozen, so back and forth, repeated many times, the condensed ice crystals on the food are getting bigger and bigger, and the food cells are destroyed step by step, which eventually leads to a serious loss of nutrients from the food itself.
This is also the reason why the nutritional value of long-term frozen meat is greatly reduced.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="37" > the harm of eating frozen meat for a long time</h1>
1. Induced diseases: Frozen meat even within the shelf life will inevitably have bacteria, not to mention long-term preservation, "expired" frozen meat, viruses, bacteria breeding in large quantities, even if the high temperature cooking before eating, can not completely eliminate all harmful substances, there will still be toxic substance residues, people will inevitably get sick after eating, especially gastrointestinal diseases, very high incidence.
2. Accelerate aging: The process of frozen meat refrigeration is the process of fat and protein oxidation, and the process of loss of nutritional value.
Therefore, every additional day of refrigeration, the meat quality becomes a little worse, the nutritional value drops to a level, long-term frozen food is not only poor taste, low nutrition, and oxidation products are also more, people may accelerate aging after eating.