I’ve been on a kick to eat seasonally for about 8 years now. At first I was choosing my food by the calendar because I had heard about a local farm right down the road that was offering farm shares and thought it would be neat to check out. For twenty weeks, I traveled 5 miles to a farm to pick up a box full of fruits and vegetables and used this to plan my meals. I thought it was pretty cool to show my kids exactly where their food comes from and I learned so much during that first year about produce storage, cooking, and food in general. Fast forward another eight years and I have expanded my seasonal eating sources to include farm shares for produce and meat, you-pick farms for berries and apples, personal gardening, and farmer’s markets. After all of this experience, I have discovered so many more benefits to eating seasonally. My hope is to inspire others to eat seasonally too.
This article may contain affiliate / compensated links. For full information, please see the disclaimer here.
What Does it Mean to Eat Seasonally?
To eat seasonally means that you base your diet off of foods that are produced locally and eat them (mostly) at the time when they are available. That means you enjoy fresh greens in the spring, binge on sweet corn and melon in August and September, and feast on roots and other cold weather veggies in the fall. Just like our ancestors, in order to enjoy produce in the winter, you have to store, can, or freeze the surplus from the growing season. It is up to you to decide how close to home your food should travel to still be “in season” in your area, however I think we can all agree that if you live in the United States, it is NOT seasonal to eat strawberries from Mexico in January or pears from Argentina in the summer. Keep reading to learn why we need to do better.
Learn how to eat seasonally here
Six Reasons to Eat Seasonally
So, without further ado and in no particular order, here are my six reasons to eat seasonally. They come from personal experience and a lot of research.
1 – Taste!
You get the freshest, most delicious food when you eat the seasons. Think back to a tomato that you had in January. Yes it was red, but the flesh is mealy and there is absolutely no flavor! Contrast that with a sun-ripened tomato straight off the vine in August. It is sweet and juicy and dream worthy. Once you start eating food at its prime and get to know the true flavor, you will crave that. This keeps eating interesting and gives you something to look forward to all year round.
Teach this lesson to your children. Have them pick a sugar snap pea or cherry tomato straight off the vine and eat it while standing next to the garden. I promise they will never want one that has been transported halfway across the world again. It just doesn’t taste the same! I do preserve a lot of my produce so that we can get small reminders of summer when we are blanketed in snow, but truly fresh tastes best.
2 – Health
Not only does seasonal food taste better, but it also happens to be more nutritious. The more time that passes from picking, the more vitamins and nutrients that are lost from the food. Not only that, but if you are choosing fresh produce and cooking from scratch, your waistline will thank you. You don’t have to worry about salt and sugar like you do with packaged foods. As Michael Pollan said in his book, In Defense of Food, “It is hard to eat badly from the farmer’s market, from a CSA box…or from your garden.” You really have to work at it to spoil the whole foods you are cooking with!
I guarantee that if you eat seasonally, you will improve your health. Our bodies are designed to eat with the changing climate. Think about the water dense fruits and vegetables, like watermelon and cucumbers to keep you hydrated in the hottest months. Or how about the carrots and squash packed full of beta carotene which helps boost the immune system going into winter? I could go on and on with examples. Nature has its own plan for us, we just need to follow it!
3 – Environment
When you cook in your home, have you ever stopped to think about where your food comes from? Once I started to think about it I couldn’t stop. Now I look at every produce sticker, every label on jars, cans and frozen veggies, and the back of every processed food package. The average food travels 1,500 miles to make it to your plate. Shipping food halfway across the country? How inefficient! In order to transport fresh produce or meat that far, it has to travel in refrigerated trucks which use a huge amount of oil and produce CO2 emissions. Additionally, the majority of crops that feed the U.S. are grown in California, Mexico, and other warm weather areas. Unfortunately, many of these areas are prone to draughts and large amounts of water are needed to irrigate the crops. That is a big drain of resources in these already parched areas.
Now when I look at where my food comes from I aim for a 150 mile radius (basically that includes my state). With gardening I can even get my food just out the back door! If you eat seasonally, an added environmental benefit is that you can often get food completely unpackaged and not have to fret about all that plastic you are throwing in the garbage.
4 – Cost
Eating things when they are abundantly available is much more cost effective. It is the rule of supply and demand. Also, if you cut out the middleman and go straight to the producers, you are going to get a better price than you would at the grocery store. I now spend about $40 per week on a very large box of fresh, organic, local produce from a farm to feed a family of five. That is $8 per person per week for organic produce! You will not find a better deal at any grocery store and the cost is much cheaper than eating out or buying processed food. If you hit up the farmer’s markets you will find similar pricing. And if you grow your food yourself from seed, you can cut your cost of produce to an average of about $70 per year. Trust me, if you eat seasonally, your pocketbook will thank you!
5 – Support your local economy
Do not underestimate this point! A huge advantage to eating seasonally is that you can be a part of your community. You can forge relationships with farmers and feel good about supporting their families. When people in your community do well, your whole local economy does well. You are putting your money right back into your neighbors. And if your community does well, this leads to growing businesses, healthier people, and more resources for everyone. Eating seasonally is a win-win for all!
6 – Become more self-sufficient
Learning to grow some of your own food and cook from scratch will put you on a great path to self-sufficiency. You can even forage for some of your food in nature. Is it likely that you will be able to provide everything for yourself? No, but it is a great feeling knowing how to feed yourself in an emergency and not rely on food shipped from around the world. This is especially true during times of uncertainty and when we face food shortages at the grocery stores. I cannot tell you how much relief it brings me to see my freezer and pantry packed full of foods that I have preserved. I’m like a squirrel with nuts!
There are so many life lessons for children when you eat seasonally. Learning how to store food with canning and freezing. Starting plants from seed. Learning how to plan your meals around the weekly harvest. These are all life skills that you can learn together and your children can pass to their children to become more self-sufficient too. We’ve somehow lost that as a society – let’s bring it back!
More Information to Help you Eat Seasonally
Now that you know my reasons to eat seasonally, the next step is to learn how to eat seasonally. I have an entire how-to guide on this topic. Check it out here:
How to Eat the Seasons: A Complete Guide
Trackbacks/Pingbacks