Bye, bye, frozen food!

HYDERABAD: Our lives have become so busy that the food that we consume needs to be handy and there comes the concept of frozen and processed food. It has become our go-to meal almost every day due to convenience. But how safe is this for our lifestyle? Would it somehow be a problem in the later stages of our life? Well to find this out and to know what this frozen and processed food could cost our life we speak to experts who give us insights about what could exactly happen if one consumes this food on a daily or mostly on a regular basis.

Sujatha Stephen RD, a well-known nutritionist in the city talks says that frozen or processed food could become dangerous to your life in the long run.“Frozen food which is available in the market, to preserve them they usually do some kind of treatment, that will cause a problem like the risk of heart problems. Frozen foods are also not safe, we cannot maintain the temperature properly, and they are uncooked and put into the freezer. There would also be some kind of bacterial growth on it which is unsafe again and could also lead to indigestion and stomach cancer which are also some of the risks of consuming such kinds of foods.

The main point here is that they will be high in sodium content and because of freezing foods the nutrition will also not be maintained, it might not be as fresh when compared to frozen foods. Frozen food should only be consumed for emergency purposes but not for regular intake or consumption. It is better to avoid. Usually in other countries, they maintain temperature, but here because of this issue, they might not be a good option to choose here. You could switch to foods like sun-dried foods where you cannot find moisture on the food as it could cause bacteria on the food and also lead to viral infections. Go for dried products which are good for your health too,” says Sujatha.

Adding more inputs on the negative health effects of frozen foods, Dr B Sainath, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Care Hospitals, Banjara Hills says, “There is no associated data that implicates frozen food leads to cancer. But the more processed the food is, we are consuming simpler carbohydrates and simple sugars which can lead to obesity which is then again a risk factor for cancer. Processed food or smoked food are associated with cancer rather than freezing food.

A certain amount of processed food leads to metabolic problems which in turn can be a risk factor for cancer. Processed food also has less fibre and so it removes the protective effect of all these things. For any cancer most of the time you only know the risk, in patients with the risk factors I would say that out of 1000 around 10 could get it and in patients without the risk factors there would be chances of only 5 of them to get it. We do not have causality, but it will increase the risk. We need to take a long time to study this. Ultra-processed food all have a certain amount of risk. Rather than having a direct effect, it will have an indirect effect.”