[kevinp]

Have you all always blanched your veg ? Its just that I remember years ago my mum just slicing beans up and putting them straight in the freezer, there would have been no way she could have blanched as many as she froze.
 I have asked a few other women what they do and none blanch they just freeze, are there any real benefits to blanching/not blanching.

[shokkyy]

Some people blanch and some don't. Most of the instruction manuals for freezing will tell you to blanch. The theory is that blanching helps to stop the enzymes that cause deterioration and help to retain the colour. I never have blanched anything and everything seems to keep for a very long time with no problems.

I've always felt that it's quite difficult to get the timing exactly right, given that you're blanching something for a time as short as 1, 2 or 3 minutes, and given that the water is quite likely to go off the boil a bit when you drop the veg in. And my crops are never all ready to pick at the same time, so if I have to wait for enough to do a batch of blanching, they're not all that fresh any more by the time they get blanched and frozen. So I just pick whatever's ripe on a particular day and chuck it straight in the freezer, no delay.

So I think there's pros and cons to both sides of the argument, and you just have to do whatever suits you best.

[Val H]

Vegetables frozen without blanching are safe indefinitely but the flavour declines over time due to the enzymes in them. Freezing merely slows, not stops, enzymes causing deterioration. Blanching the veg before freezing destroys the enzymes completely and gives you a product that is suitable for long term storage with no loss of flavour. Blanching also helps to retain the Vitamin C.

[kevinp]

Thanks you both for your replys, I only question weather to blanch or not as I was given a couple of kilos of runners and blanching them was quite a job. Because as you know if you put too many in the boiling water it takes some time to reboil, I saw a massive stock type pot for sale at the weekend I might buy this as a larger quantity of water will cool less.