The Common Misconception of Fresh versus Frozen Meat
Often people want to know whether meat is fresh or frozen. This is based on the accepted conventional wisdom that fresh food is better than frozen food.
You may have seen signs at the grocery store calling out “fresh dairy” or “fresh produce.” The intent is to position fresh food, which is really only chilled food, as the superior quality product. It implies that frozen food is inferior, however nothing could be further from the truth.
Meat that has been flash-frozen at the peak of freshness as soon as it has been cut will be superior in freshness than meat that’s packaged and sold as fresh and in reality is only chilled. This is a result of the science behind flash-freezing and how food degrades over time.
“Fresh” is a relative term and is often used to describe chilled food that is not nearly as fresh as frozen food that has been treated correctly.
Additionally, the majority of the time you are purchasing chilled meat from the retail store that you perceive to be fresh, it was sent there frozen and then defrosted in a back room, before being put on display. Most people are astounded to realize that if they take chilled meat home and freeze it, they are freezing it for a second time. The only way you can store fresh meat is to place meat that was flash frozen during production in your freezer.
This same misconception often occurs at many restaurants. You will often hear people dining at seafood restaurants on the beach comment that they believe their fish was caught fresh, chilled and sent straight to the restaurant. Nothing could be further from reality. The catch is frozen and then shipped to a distributor before eventually making its way to the seafood restaurant.
Why is it important for meat to be frozen?
It is critical to freeze meat for long-term storage because it creates a state of suspension. This prevents the natural enzymes that break down food from taking effect. It also leads to potentially harmful bacteria remaining dormant. There is no decline in the quality of meat while frozen. For meat to remain at the peak of freshness and tenderness, it has to be frozen rapidly and at extremely cold temperatures. This is known as the flash freezing process.
What is flash freezing and how is it different from when I freeze meat myself?
How Domestic Freezers Work
In Australia, domestic freezers are normally set at minus 18 degrees Celsius. That is based on the recommended settings on your freezer dial. The highest number on your dial will be the coldest setting. 1 being the lowest.
Meat will normally freeze in an Australian freezer in 24 hours at this setting. This also is very dependent on how much meat you have taking up space in your freezer, so this can take longer if you are trying to freeze a lot of meat at once.
How Commercial Flash Freezing Works
Flash freezing is a commercial level process designed to rapidly freeze products without compromising on quality, texture, freshness, moisture or taste. This is achieved by high-speed internal cooling, which rapidly cools down the internal temperature.
Why Speed Matters: The Ice Crystal Threshold
When flash freezing food, the threshold is the ice crystal formation zone. The quicker that the meat passes the threshold, the better the result of the freshness of the meat. The longer the process takes for ice crystals to form, the more the amount of damage occurs within the cell membranes of the meat.
The Stockman Steaks Freezing Process
At Stockman Steaks, meat is placed into a blast freezing flash freezer which operates at a very high speed. This ensures that the meat bypasses the threshold extremely quickly and results in higher quality, fresher tasting meat.
Stockman Steak’s meat is frozen at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures. Even after the freezing process is complete, it then comes out of the blast freezer at below minus 28 degrees Celsius. However, the most important element was the rapid time taken to freeze.
Benefits of Vacuum Sealing
Stockman Steak’s meat is vacuum-sealed before entering the commercial blast-freezer. Vacuum-sealing removes oxygen from the packaging, preventing discolouration from oxidation and freezer burn, while also tightly locking juices into the meat. This means it will last a long time in your freezer. Stockman Steaks meat has an expiry date that is marked as one year but it will last beyond that and will taste as fresh as the day it was processed. This is much longer than if you were to freeze store-bought meat.
Practical Benefits for Everyday Use
Another major benefit with Stockman Steak’s meat is that once you defrost it in your fridge, you have at least a week to use it, due to both the air-tight vacuum seal and this flash freezing process.
This takes away all of the stress of using store bought or chilled, delivered meat, even if delivered vacuum sealed and used in a quick 2-day period. You will end up never having to worry about throwing away precious meat. The next time you are planning to cook a steak but get a last-minute invitation to go out, you will not have to worry about wasting food.
This significantly reduces meat wastage by up to one third of your yearly meat purchases. Australian households waste 2.5 million tonnes of food yearly. This can be prevented by purchasing flash frozen meat.
Plus, it makes meal prepping so much easier, when you have a whole week of fresh, tasty meat ready to go in your fridge.
Many of our customers choose one day a week, where they pull their meat out of the freezer and select their meals for the next week. This makes life so much easier.
Taste the difference.
Why Flash Frozen Mince Tastes Better
Although we are renowned for our restaurant quality steaks, we receive so many compliments on our mince. It is flash-frozen and vacuum sealed as soon as it has been produced. Most people who have only purchased store bought mince, have never purchased truly fresh mince.
You don't have to worry about how long it has been sitting on the shelf gathering bacteria and oxidising. Most people have never tasted mince this fresh. You can clearly taste the difference.
The health benefits
Flash frozen, pasture-raised meat retains it nutrients. This includes the vitamins and minerals, the Omega 3 essential fatty acids, and the level of bioavailability of its protein.
More and more customers are seeking out flash frozen meat to obtain low-histamine meat. The flash freezing process is critical for keeping the amine levels in check. We will delve into this further in another follow up blog post.
The flash freezing process is now clearly the most superior way to order meat for Australian consumers.
