I thought that perhaps the sharpness of the ice crystals shreds the cell walls and the plant cells would have nothing to hold them together.
But I got thinking, shouldn’t that happen with wood as well? It doesn’t.
Also, if the ice crystals could shred the cell wall, wouldn’t they do the same to the cell membrane of an animals cell. As everyone knows thawed steak has virtually the same consistency as fresh steak.
Any ideas?
I believe its to do with the formation of ice crystals. Because you are freezing it quite slowly ice crystals form and then grow as they do they puncture the cell walls of the fruit like daggers. as the fruit defrosts all the contents of the cells leak out and the structure collapses causing the mushy feel. ( I think this is right but will bow to superior knowledge)
Sorry poor typing speed and not reading whole of post, just title caused dipstick reply
New Golden Rule added to brain (Read the whole thing)
Have you ever seen flesh after frostbite? Trust me, animal cells get shredded quite well.
My guess is that it has less to do with the sharpness of the crystals than with the expansion of water as it freezes bursting the cell walls. The texture of fruits and veggies is deoendent on the integrity of those individual cells. Wood OTOH has stiffness not from the cell wall structure but from the cellulose and other varied extracellular structures. Likewise meat gets its texture more from the extracellular matrix of collagen and other substances. I’d also suspect that the cell membrane is able to expand without bursting more than the stiffer plant cell wall can.
Just a guess though.
Meat does tend to lose juices when frozen and thawed. It’s just not as noticeable as fruits – and it’s not even all fruits and veggies, just some.
Thawed-out frozen raspberries keep their texture very well. Compare that to strawberries which end up very mushy.
Water content and cell strenght are also factors.
A lot of fruit has a high percentage of water, wood low.
Also slap a peach with your hand while sitting on a table.
Now slap a piece of wood with your hand while sitting on a table.
And sugar content – natural antifreeze.
One thing I learned from watching Mythbusters is that trees are designed to be frozen. They were trying to test the myth of the exploding Christmas tree, the idea being that a frozen tree would shatter and explode. Even when they flash froze the tree with liquid nitrogen the tree did not shatter. They found a tree expert who told them that trees are structured in such a way that there are empty spaces for the water to expand into as it freezes, thus preventing any damage from occurring. It’s a mechanism that they have evolved over the years that allows them to survive through the winter.
They do. You need to look into why people freeze embryos rather than human ova - until a brand new techique within the past five years, freezing ova didn’t work because the freezing process caused the cell to burst.