We can change the world one meal at a time by carefully choosing what to eat. For instance, eating seasonal vegetables every day can have a big impact on what we have around us. To better understand this, we will go into detail on three good reasons why we should prefer seasonal produce.
Seasonal Produce Is Good for You
Eating seasonal products means first of all eating tasty! Choosing fresh and harvested vegetables according to their natural maturation will allow you to taste extraordinary and unique flavors. The same doesn’t apply to non-seasonal products.
Even if they are in season in another country or continent, these vegetables will probably have travelled for days or have stayed for a long time in cold stores. If you choose this type of product, the quality of your dishes may be affected. The best solution is therefore to respect the changing seasons in your country and enjoy the goodness that the local crops offer.
Eating seasonal products also means eating healthy. Seasonal vegetables, in fact, do not need tricks to grow. This applies especially to products from organic farming, without unknown additives. In addition, changing the food on the table according to the season means automatically diversifying the intake of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that your body needs.
It Is Good for Your Wallet
Today it is true we can find all kinds of fruits and vegetables in every month of the year. This infinite availability, however, means incurring higher costs that will inevitably increase the final price. What costs?
- The higher costs for out-of-season production, i.e. for all the tools needed to defy the adverse climate, such as additives for cultivation or heated greenhouses;
- Storage costs, for example in cold stores where products are stored for longer or shorter periods waiting to be requested (and shipped to their destination);
- The cost of transport from the regions (or foreign countries) where the product is in season to your local supermarket.
Choosing the vegetables in the right month will allow you to avoid that the price makes you pay – it’s just the case to say that – the choice to buy a product out of season.
It Is Good for Our Planet
The higher costs are economic but also – and above all – environmental. Just think about all the trucks crossing America with exotic tomatoes, cold stores keeping vegetables good even for weeks and production in heated greenhouses while outside perhaps is freezing. They are all energy-intensive activities that ultimately consume fossil fuels and clean air.
Think also of biodiversity. Why limit yourself to the variety chosen to be produced out of season, if you just have to wait a few months to have the full range of flavors that fruits and vegetables are able to offer you in season? That’s why you should choose local, nearby, known foods. The short supply chain is the first and best guarantee that the products you bring to the table are really fresh and genuine.
