Canned Vegetables Can be Better than Fresh Vegetables — For Your Health & The Environment

Shopping the middle of the supermarket

There’s an exception to every rule, including the one about shopping the perimeter of the supermarket. For the most part, it is healthier to spend most of your grocery budget in the produce section. But sometimes, the healthiest vegetables — for your family and the planet — are in the canned food section.

Take the tomato, which I use nearly every day in my cooking. I mostly use canned organic tomatoes through the winter. I live in Colorado and the only available fresh varieties are pale, mealy and tasteless conventional toms shipped fresh halfway across the country (or further). I think it’s back to the canned aisle.

When is a canned tomato better than a fresh one?

• When it is organic, and you can only get conventional fresh varieties. Tomatoes need a moderate number of pesticides to grow. Not as many as peaches but enough that you really don’t want to be ingesting them if you can help it.

• When it was canned at the peak of the season, and you (or your fresh tomatoes) are out of season. In-season tomatoes will taste better — even in a can (though admittedly not on a salad).

• When your tomato canning company is local and your out-of-season tomatoes are not. Transportation is a major factor in your carbon footprint. Sure it takes some energy to make and pack that can, but it is recyclable. The gas used to rush your tomatoes across the country in a refrigerated truck can’t be reused. Even canned tomatoes from other states can leave a smaller carbon footprint because they could be transported in unrefrigerated trucks or trains (which use less energy).

• When you recycle the can (OK, that doesn’t actually make it better, but it’s still a good idea).

• When you are using the tomatoes cold. Your body absorbs the lycopene (which some studies suggest is a cancer fighter) in tomatoes more effectively after they are heated, which is a necessary part of canning.

• When you read the label. Look for canned vegetables that were cooked and packed in water. Sadly, it’s usually an opt-out situation. Most tomatoes are packed in salt and you have to seek out the “no salt added” cans. (Maybe if we buy those cans enough, the producers will switch, leaving the “salt added” cans to gather dust next to the canned Brussels sprouts).

Random notes

A couple more thoughts before you rush off to the grocery store:

• If you really want vegetables with lots of flavor and not much environmental impact, can your own. For more on home canning, read this article.

• Consider frozen vegetables, too. I can’t justify the energy usage of keeping them frozen all year and shipping them all over in freezers. However, they may be healthier than fresh peas. This article from the Times of London notes that high-quality frozen peas can pack more vitamins than fresh peas. They were likely quick-frozen within hours of picking whereas the “fresh” peas may be days away from the farm.