Why cant you just reheat food and then re freeze ad infintum?

Question

i dont know whether this should be in Science-but why can you not refreeze food and reheat until it is used up?what happens when you defrost and reheat to the molecules in the food?
My health rests on your answers ;)
Just kidding!

Answer 1

Depends on what you mean by food. If you are talking about meals as such then the food value would gradually degrade as you de-nature the proteins.

More importantly bacterial spoilage and poisoning become more probable. If you re-heat to boiling and cool to below freezing quickly then little risk. It is the slow heating and cooling cycles that introduce the time needed for potentially pathogenic bacteria to multiply to dangerous levels.

You may want to look up Botulism in wiki.

However some "foods" can be re-heated multiple times. For example oil in deep fat fryers is (often) cycled several times and is not even frozen!

Answer 2

I can't give you a scientific answer, but I can say that the food would lose quality each time you reheated or refroze it - it would dry up, and there would be a chance of any bacteria in the food multiplying during its 'warm spell'. If you've ever had any frozen food defrost by mistake and then refreeze -e.g. power cut - you'll know that it doesn't taste as good.

Answer 3

I think food generally becomes oxidised and the form changes. But more importantly there degradation of food from bacteria allways occures no matter where it is stored allthough a fridge does slow the process down

Answer 4

Supposedly bacteria can land on the food which is not killed by re-freezing. But if you lived in some African countries with food shortages you would re-freeze and I can confirm many who have not suffered for it either.

Answer 5

have you ever heard of bacteria? heating and freezing builds up different types of bacteria that may cause food poisoning. good luck

Answer 6

It changes the chemical structure and introduces bacteria into it.