Is Seasonal Eating Better for your Health?

I was walking back from yoga this past weekend as the usual San Francisco fog started rolling in from the bay and it got really cold, really fast. In my zen state, I started pondering about my post-yoga snack, and things like tea and the chicken roasting in my oven sounded really good to me. Watermelon? Sangria? No, thank you.

It got me thinking - our body often gives us signs when we’re lacking in certain nutrients, like if you crave spinach or red meat when you’re low on iron. So what if we desire certain seasonal foods as the seasons change, and there’s a nutritional reason behind it? And what are the benefits to following a seasonal diet?

I set out on Google to explore.

We all know that eating seasonally helps support our local economy, and food sustainability overall. The health benefits of eating seasonally were pretty interesting, however. They include:

• Seasonal foods have a higher nutritional content and higher anti-oxidant content. That’s often because foods that are being forced to grow out of season need pesticides, waxes, and preservatives to become grocery-store ready
• By eating seasonal foods, you are rotating the kinds of foods that you bring into your diet - helping your body from developing intolerances and allergies <—- fascinating!!
• Eating seasonally helps maintain a diverse diet
• Eating seasonally helps your body align with the external environment

Dani plus monster late summer eggplant

I also thought this quote to be particularly interesting, “Once upon a time, people ate certain foods only when they were readily available, accessible and in season. These days, however, it is extremely easy for us to forget about seasons when we eat. Thanks to modern food processing techniques and worldwide distribution of resources, most foods remain available year-round. Grocery store shelves look the exact same in December as they do mid July, and we are able to buy any type of food we want irrespective of its seasonal availability.

Just because technology makes it possible for us to have oranges in winter, however, doesn’t mean we should eat all foods whenever we please. The disadvantages of living in a technologically advanced period with modern day food practices have revealed themselves among us in the form of an increasing number of food intolerances and allergies, higher levels of obesity, modern chronic diseases like type-2 diabetes and much more.”

Beyond the list above, I think when you eat seasonally, you are being much more selective about the foods you’re purchasing and where you’re purchasing them from, you’re cooking at home more, and you’re paying much more attention overall at what you’re putting in your body. I can definitely see direct correlations between that and overall health - I know I see it for myself!

I hope you found my amateur and brief research as interesting as I did. And I’m looking forward to all of the fall recipes that I’m going to share with you this upcoming season!

It's only fair to share...