Optimum freezing time aka avoiding takeaways

attentionseeker1

Hi all

Am expecting my first child in October and I want to freeze a lot of healthy meals for the early weeks to avoid the temptation of takeaways/ready meals.

How long beforehand would you recommend starting the batch cooking? Am torn between starting early before I am too whale-like and exhausted to spend ages cooking but wanting the meals to be at optimum levels nutrition-wise. I don't want to touch any of the meals before October so if I were to start today for example, they would be sitting there for three months 'deteriorating' as it were before we even started eating them!

double_mummy

personally i wouldnt do it more than 8 weeks in advance

if you want to do it closer to the time do you have anyone who can hlep you to do the food?

joedenise

Absolutely no reason why you shouldn't start cooking and freezing now. I often have frozen meals in the freezer for several months without a problem.

Denise

[Deleted User]

freezing basically puts food in a suspended state.If you can bear to cook in this heat then I would I have never had a propblem with food from the freezer and often batch cook stuff to save me time when I just don't feel like cooking when I get home around 6.30 from looking after my DDs four children.

meritaten

why not start now? you have just three months to go and I cannot believe that meals would lose most of their nutritional value in that short time! otherwise the nutritional info on frozen meals would be meaningless - and look how long they last in freezer!
Do it when you feel up to it - and don't forget to do some treats as well! very handy to have a nice batch of cream cakes in case of visitors!