Are uncooked frozen green beans dangerous?

[aesthete]

Is there some danger to eating thawed frozen green beans? my dad got sick from something the other day, and this is one of the things he ate. I saw something online about freezing green beans releasing some kind of toxin that had to be cooked out, but it wasn't really clear, and can't find anything else on the subject.

 

[auntdot]

To my knowledge, no, absolutely not.

If the beans were good when they were frozen and they were not thawed and sitting in a truck at terrible temps, and you ate them within a day or two, or even more, no.

People get sick for all sorts of reasons and I would not blame the green beans until I had eliminated everything else.

Have prayed to the porcelin convenience and know what a nasty germ can do.

Hope your dad is doing OK.

But would look more carefully at other foods for the culprit. Or perhsps, it was a virus or bacterial disease.

 

[amber]

As far as I know, any frozen and then thawed veggies are fine to eat. Hope your dad feels better soon. Just make a list of everything he can think of that he ate, but of course it could be a bug from any number of things.

 

[middie]

He may not have gotten sick from eating something. There's alot of viruses and things going around this time of year. Hope he's feeling better.

 

[Candocook]

It could have been anything. I would put thawed green beans in a salad and not think a thing about it--they have been blanched and would be a nice texture. Being frozen, they have not been in an anaerobic situation that would make them candidates for botulism--as in canned. They were not "IT".

 

[Michael in FtW]

... I saw something online about frozen green beans releasing some kind of toxin that had to be cooked out, but it wasn't really clear, and can't find anything else on the subject.

I "think" what you are talking about is the cyanide in "frozen green LIMA beans" - they need to be cooked, preferably uncovered, until tender ... this get's rid of the cyanide - same goes for fresh lima beans.

Something else that might cause a problem is from other broad beans, like Fava Beans, especially if your Dad is on a MAOI (Monoamine oxidase inhibitor) antidepressant drug - or green soy beans (edamame).

If you're talking about the common garden variety of green beans ... I would look at what else he ate as the cause of his "illness". I've eaten these totally raw picked off the vine with no problem for 50-years.

 

[aesthete]

yeah, i've eaten raw green beans too, and i'm sure that's ok, but thawed frozen are what i read about (it may have been lima beans)

he has a tough time getting food poisoning, because he eats no meat, and no dairy aside from dehydrated milk. He thought there was some chance he oversugared eating a bunch of freshly opened jelly, because he hasn't been eating much sugar in the past six months or so.

Candocook - I wonder if blanching would be different from a microwave defrost. I know he's unlikely to have blanched them, because he doesn't like boiling veggies, feeling he loses too much of the vitamins and goodness...

 

[Michael in FtW]

You don't need to eat meat to get food poisoning ... just look back over the past 6 months ... the E. coli from spinach, lettuce, etc. - and the salmonella from peanut butter, and there was a problem with dehydrated milk about 6-8 months ago.

Frozen vetetables are blanched - before they are frozen. This kills surface bacteria and browning enzymes. If your Dad wants to follow the "microwave" instructions on the package he might decrease nutrition loss a little since they are generally "steamed" rather than being boiled. The sad, but true truth, is ... unless yuou eat your veges raw and straight from the garden ... there is some nutritional loss. Of course, the mere process of washing the veges off has some measurable loss of nutrients.

 

[Candocook]

Blanching is just a part of the process of freezing food--veggies have to be blanched before freezing as Michael also said. Your father could have gotten sick from something he got on his hands from a door knob.
Being so obsessive about loss of nutrition from microwaving may be more dangerous to the body and mind for its stress level than for the nutrition needs of the body. ;o) Food is to be enjoyed, in my opinion.

 

[jennyema]

He thought there was some chance he oversugared eating a bunch of freshly opened jelly, because he hasn't been eating much sugar in the past six months or so.

Was the jelly home canned? That may have been the culprit.