Seasonal Eating Guide

15.03.2022

If you want to improve your and your family’s eating habits, seasonal fruit and veggies are one of the best choices you can find. You don’t need to push yourself hard to find seasonal produce. Make recipes from ingredients available in the farmers market, local grocery store, or your garden. It’s not hard, right? Seasonal food comes naturally from mother nature. Just change your mindset and enjoy the benefits of seasonal eating.

Why should you eat seasonally?

Health: Seasonal foods are generally higher in specific nutrients required to boost your immunity to seasonal diseases like flu or cold.

Taste:. Since they don’t have to be shipped from far away, seasonal products are fresher and taste better compared to out of season products.

Cost:  Seasonal foods, being cheaper, reduce your grocery bills.

Supporting your local businesses: Eating seasonally means you can support local shops and farmers. Instead of big grocery chains, you buy your grocery directly from local shops and local farmers. It also gives them a big push and support for next season.

Now, it’s time to figure out how to use those seasonal items.

You need a plan

Because seasonal products are around for 3-4 months, you need to prepare a plan to maximize their usage. So, a meal plan is a great way to do that. You can prepare a weekly meal list. It also makes your life easier and you don’t have to think about what you would cook for hours. You can share it with your family and ask for their opinion and do some changes later.

Don’t make things complicated

Seasonal recipes, like seasonal foods, are really easy to find. Don’t try to cook complicated dishes before getting used to using certain ingredients. In other words, keep everything simple.

What’s in season now?

The products vary depending on where you live in the world. The easiest way to learn them is just visiting your local farmers market and see what they are selling. You can also check the internet. However, local foods are not the ONLY in-season foods. Foods that come from other climates also have a season. For instance, many people can’t buy citrus fruits throughout the year, but they are imported from other parts of the world or shipped from other provinces in the same country. However, winter is the best season to get them at their freshest and lowest price. Let’s check what are the freshest produce for different seasons.

1. Winter

Winter is the season of rest even for the earth. It’s the season of warm soups and stews made with starchy veggies. Vegetables like beets, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip, and winter squash are found easily. Citrus fruits like tangerine, orange, lemons, and grapefruit are consumed during winter.

2. Spring

Nature starts to wake up with an abundance of grass, flowers, and delicious colorful produce.  As the season proceeds to April and May, you find more and more freshly harvested products. We find more greens at the beginning of the season, and pineapples, strawberries, and blueberries towards the end of the season. Fresh tomatoes show their redness around may. Also, spring is the best time to go hunting for wild mushrooms.

3. Summer

At the end of June, the summer officially starts with an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s a good time to create jams from sweet fruits and do some pickling for winter. Summer gives us many watery fruits like cantaloupe and watermelon. Even nature doesn’t want us to dehydrate during hot days.

4. Autumn

It’s time to go back to school. But the beginning of autumn is still a reflection of summer and you can find many summer groceries. Also, how can we forget that autumn is the official harvest period? When the weather starts to cool down, the heartier veggies begin to come into season and most of them can be stored well for a long time. Finding root and cruciferous vegetables becomes much easier.

In the beginning, it might be overwhelming to start eating seasonally. But as the time passes, you’ll realize it’s not as hard as it seems. Share our blog with your friends and family and don’t forget to follow us on social media.