Eating By the Season

You know eating local cuts your food miles and saves thousands of pounds of carbon from entering the atmosphere, but take it a step further and create a diet that hinges on seasonal foods: produce being grown and harvested in the current season. Seasonal diets help save the planet and boost your own health. Studies show a diet heavy on seasonal fruits and vegetables is more nutrient-rich than the standard grocery store diet. Food is at its peak nutritional value when it's ripened on the vine. Foods picked early and ripened during the shipping process aren't able to absorb many nutrients that are transferred from the vine late in the ripening stage. Add locally grown foods from this seasonal food guide to your diet during the appropriate months and reap the environmental and health benefits.

Summer: Beans, Blackberries, Blueberries, Cantaloupe, Corn, Eggplant, Okra, Peaches, Peanuts, Peppers, Tomatoes, Watermelon, Zucchini.

Fall: Apples, Broccoli Cabbage, Cucumbers, Grapes, Leafy Greens, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Raspberries, Squash.

Winter: Carrots, Honey, Leafy Greens, Mushrooms, Sweet Potatoes, Syrup.

Spring: Broccoli, Collards, Herbs, Leafy Greens, Onions, Peanuts, Spinach, Strawberries.

Copied from Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine, Charlottesville, VA 22902, July 2009, p. 8.


God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.