What you're missing - when you don't eat what's in season.
Minute for your health #45
…eat foods in season, when they are at the peak of their nutritional value and flavour…
-Micheal Pollan
Have you ever eaten a tomato in winter and thought to yourself: “this tastes like nothing”?
Or cooked pumpkin soup in summer and sat sweating trying to eat in the heat?
Or bought strawberries imported from the other end of the world in February only to be disappointed by their decided lack of flavour and smell?
Read on to learn how eating in season - a.k.a giving up on your claim to eat everything any time you please - can improve your life.
(Read until the end for a free Spring gift).
Eating Seasonal = Eating Local
What’s in season will depend on where you live. Which means you are much more likely to buy locally produced foods when you shop for what’s in season.
Locally produced foods not only support your local economy, it also has been transported shorter distances to reach you. This is beneficial for the environment and it means the food has had less time to lose important nutrients. Thus local, seasonal food is richer in nutrients than none local, none seasonal foods.
Eating Seasonal = Flavour
Foods that have not been stored for long periods of time and that have been grown and harvested in optimum, natural conditions taste INCREDIBLE.
If you’ve ever grown tomatoes in the summer sun on your balcony and harvested one to pop straight into your mouth you will know that the explosion of flavour is nothing like the taste of a supermarket bought tomato in winter.
Our claim to eating all foods all the time has led to a compromise in flavour. Yes you might get tomatoes all year round, but tomato is not tomato when you compare the flavour of a seasonal tomato to the flavour of one bought out of season.
Eating Seasonal = Sustainable
There is a lot of discussion about climate change and how our habits are awful for the environment.
In typical human fashion we jump straight to ‘extreme’ solutions like veganism. If you’re not ready to save the world by becoming vegan, maybe you are ready to choose seasonal foods and reduce your environmental footprint that way.
Seasonal foods are more sustainable because they require less energy and chemicals to be grown, they are transported shorter distances and they are stored for shorter periods of time.
Eating Seasonal = Medicine
Have you ever noticed that seasonal foods suit the season in which they are ripe?
In summer we have an influx of juicy, light fruits and vegetables like salad, cucumber and watermelon.
In winter we have a richness of nourishing, warming root vegetables like pumpkins, parsnip and beetroot.
Seasonal fruits and vegetables not only emotionally suit the season in which they are ripe, they also contain the nutrients and phytonutrients we need in that season. Root vegetables are rich in carbohydrates and antioxidants to sustain us during the harsh flu season. Summer vegetables are rich in water and phytonutrients to keep us hydrated during the warmer months.
An Idea & A Gift
Thinking about seasonal eating got me thinking about meal planning.
I simply don’t have the mental capacity to figure out what’s in season and what to cook anew each week.
But I can do the work to figure it out once - and then benefit from the fruits of my labour the rest of the year.
So over the next year I will be sending you a Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter meal plan each quarter*.
*These will be based on what is in season in Northern Europe as this is where I live. You can switch out the vegetables used in these recipes with those in season where you live.
Download the Spring Meal Plan here:
Summary:
Eat more seasonal food for:
Better flavour
Better nutrition
Medicinal benefits
You will also be supporting the environment and local economy.
In case you’re wondering - in the northern hemisphere spinach, cabbage, radishes, beetroot and leek are in season in Spring (amongst others).
Images drawn by Anja Weber, 2022.
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Links and References:
https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/six-rules-for-eating-wisely/
https://www.seasonalfoodguide.org/
https://foodprint.org/eating-sustainably/real-food-encyclopedia/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/C264A576782D7B79B95A47D50515B02A/S0029665110002004a.pdf/does_eating_local_food_reduce_the_environmental_impact_of_food_production_and_enhance_consumer_health.pdf