Fresh veggies almost as easy

Western Harvest Oh Wow Mini Roasties - $6.50 for 500g. Photo / Wendyl Nissen

I get it. People are busy. So busy that the task of peeling and chopping vegetables is just not possible.

Which must by why this range of products has appeared in the fruit and veggie aisle of my local supermarket.

You can get everything for a veggie soup in one of these bags, pre-chopped celery and these root vegetables ready to roast.

These took about 30 minutes to roast in a 180C oven and tasted okay.

But they were quite salty and the texture was a bit odd, possibly because they had been sitting in a plastic bag full of preservative for a while.

I bought these on June 8 and their best-before date is June 15, so they were going to be there for a while.

Ingredients

Potatoes
This mix was mostly made up of potatoes - I calculated about 380g which at $2.20 a kilo would cost you 91c. As we know, when you peel and cut potatoes, they go brown really quickly unless you leave them soaking in water.

So why are these potatoes not brown?

Preservative (223)
This is why. Sodium metabisulphite (223) is an inorganic salt and is used as a bacterial inhibitor in wine and beer, and as an anti-browning additive for cut fruits, frozen apples, dried fruits and peeled potatoes. Some people are allergic to sulphites.

Carrot
There was about a third of a large carrot chopped up in here - about 11c worth.

Pumpkin
One small piece of pumpkin about the size of half a matchbox. About 5c worth.

Kumara
One tiny bit of kumara, the same size as the pumpkin. About 12c worth.

Parsnip
About a third of a parsnip, 34c worth.

Herb and Garlic Oil (vegetable oil, minced garlic (5.7%), salts, herbs and spices)
This little packet had about 2 tbsp of oil in it, a lot of minced garlic and some dried herbs.

My recommendations

By my estimation, preparing 500g of root vegetables for roasting would take around five minutes.

An oven takes about 15 minutes to heat up to 180C so what else are you going to do while you wait?

I do understand that grabbing a bag of pre-prepared vegetables makes life simpler, but do you not have five minutes for your health?

And do you realise you're paying for the privilege?

By my calculations, the vegetables in this bag cost $1.53. Add a bit of oil, garlic and dried herbs and we'll make that $2. To buy this product you will pay $6.50, plus you have the sulphite preservative in there.

If you must use these products, at least rinse them under water first to get rid of what sulphites you can, dry, then roast.

And don't forget that studies have shown that once a vegetable is harvested and cut it loses much of its nutritional value.

The Harvard Medical School Centre for Health and the Global Environment has found that "fresh cut" vegetables and fruit are left without intact skin for protection and prevention of nutrient loss.

The chemical make-up is altered which promotes loss of nutrients.

So you're probably better off spending that five minutes cutting up your veggies at home and popping them straight in the oven to get the most nutrients out of them.

And if you want to get even more nutrients, leave the skin on.

Do you have a food product you would like to feature in Wendyl Wants to Know? Email wendylwantstoknow@gmail.com with suggestions. Unfortunately Wendyl cannot correspond with readers.