Seasonal Fruit & Vegetables
Until recently, most people adapted their diets throughout the year according to what foods were available locally.
Today, we don’t need to pay as much attention to what’s available where we live because we have refrigerated trucks and giant supermarkets stocked with fresh foods from all over the world.
However, there are many reasons to choose seasonal foods.
Here are just a few of them;
Helps You to Adapt to Your Local Environment
That’s because the foods in season within your own region help your body adapt to the environment.
For example, wild spring greens, such as nettles, help the body fend off spring’s seasonal allergies.
Juicy summer fruits give us energy and fluids for long, hot days and provide a boost of antioxidants to help the body deal with the damaging effects of sunshine.
Autumn’s squash and root vegetables are loaded with beta-carotene, a nutrient that supports the immune system at a time of year when most of us can benefit from extra immune support; and fish, a widely available winter food source in many northern climates, is packed with vitamin D and omega 3s, which help prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Wider Variety
It may seem counterintuitive, but eating seasonally also encourages people to eat a wider variety of nutritious foods.
Although there are 80,000 edible plant species, very few are included in the modern, industrialized diet.
Globally, only 30 plant species make up 95 percent of the calories people eat, and within those 30 species, we eat far fewer varieties of vegetables and fruits than people did even 100 years ago.
Because farmers grow fewer types of crops today, the genetic diversity of our food supply is plummeting, too.
One study concluded we’d have to eat eight oranges to get the same amount of vitamin A our grandparents got from eating one.
Tastier
Seasonal produce is nearly always more flavorful than produce that’s shipped long distances.
And the shorter distance to market means more flavor: anyone who’s eaten a store-bought tomato in January and a sun-ripened one in August has tasted the difference.
Summary
Eating seasonally helps you eat healthier, more nutritious food, and be more in sync with the natural world.