Is fresh always best?

Caroline Stacey finds out which foods can be better canned or frozen than eaten fresh, in terms of taste, cost, convenience and health benefits.

Even those of us who swear by canned tomatoes and frozen peas can be slightly snobby about food that isn't fresh. I certainly always used to walk straight past canned fruit and long-life fruit juice - until I started noticing just how cheap it was.

Cans and jars have far more cachet on the Continent; think of the French with their canned cassoulet, while German stores Lidl and Aldi come up trumps with canned pulses and frozen fish fillets. But is buying canned and frozen settling for second best?

You can defrost only as much frozen food as you need at any one time

Hardly. These preserved foods are often cheaper and can also be less wasteful. You can defrost only as much frozen food as you need at any one time, or make a smoothie straight from frozen berries, and the contents of a can won't go off until it's opened. Plus, it's a great way to eat out-of-season produce.