Your taste buds have no trouble recognizing the benefit of seasonal eating. Your first bite of a locally grown peach, or an omelette made with basil and onions fresh from the farmers market can be sublime.
But when you eat most of your meals standing at the nurse’s station, are in a huge rush to fix dinner when you get home or don’t have great options for buying fresh produce, the importance of eating food grown in the season can quickly fade.
That’s where the secondary benefits are worth another look. These freshly grown foods also deliver increased nutrition, make it more likely that you’ll eat your veggies and may even help you develop a sense of community.
It’s counterintuitive, but the more reluctant you are to eat fruits and vegetables, the more important seasonal ingredients are. If you’re only going to be taking a couple of bites, you want them to be the most nutritious possible.
Also, picky eaters who don’t like canned vegetables or school cafeteria side dishes might respond much better to crunchy, fresh vegetables or lightly steamed versions. Think snap peas eaten straight from the vine, or fresh apples versus watery canned applesauce.
And those are just the benefits you’ll receive. Seasonal eating helps the environment and local businesses, too, from avoiding the carbon footprint of shipping and storing produce to paying local farmers, distributors and farm-to-table restaurants for food raised nearby.
To begin tapping into all those positives, it’s important to understand the distinction between local and global seasonal eating. “A locally seasonal fruit or vegetable is produced and consumed in its natural growing season,” noted Lilly Nugent, Tulane dietetic intern with Ochsner Eat Fit. “Globally seasonal fruits and vegetables are produced in their natural season, but they are consumed outside of this region.”
Each type has its place. “When we buy locally seasonal foods from farmers markets, we receive a better understanding of our food system ... where our food came from,” Nugent added. “These practices help us form a relationship with food that we can’t inside the grocery store, not to mention, we are supporting our local farmers in our communities.”
But focusing too strictly on the local at the expense of global can backfire. “If we were to eat locally seasonal foods only, we would greatly limit the diversity of foods we are accustomed to,” she said. “This is where global seasonality is a benefit. This gives us the opportunity to choose from a greater variety, which can ultimately increase our fruit and veggie consumption.”
If you’re going to make only one adjustment, see about adding a couple of local seasonal foods to your menu plan. Food grown naturally in your climate is extra nutritious, according to Brigitte Zeitlin, a New York City-based registered dietician with a Master of Public Health. “You get the maximum amount of nutrients the (produce) has to offer when it’s picked at its ripest and sold to you over the next few days,” she told the Well and Good blog.