It’s Summertime! Eat in Season

A new way to try and beat the heat, maintain your weight and your budget, all the while helping to save the earth is by eating in season this summer.  With the changing of seasons, try a change of outlook this summer by deciding to purchase fruits and vegetables that are in season. Even though most supermarkets enable us to buy every kind of produce year round, these options are not the most sustainable.

Why should you care? By purchasing local foods in-season, you can:

• Eliminate the environmental damage caused by shipping foods thousands of miles
• Ensure that your food dollar goes directly to the farmer
• Enjoy the benefits of eating fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables

One last benefit of eating in season is that you can often get more for less. Avoid spending $3 to $4 on a teeny bag of wilted packaged herbs and go to your local farmer’s market for a huge fresh bunch of fresh, bright green cilantro for two bucks or less! 

Not quite ready to completely commit? Try just taking the small step of bringing your family out to the local farmer’s market one time this summer for some in-season shopping. I love visiting mine here in Orlando! No doubt your kids will love seeing the bright colors of fruits and vegetables they may have never seen before, not to mention running all over the place! Not only that, but you may be surprised at how much you can get for a fraction of the cost of what your local supermarket  charges. And who knows? Before you know it, you may be frequenting the local markets, making eating in season a permanent change in your healthy lifestyle.

Here are some cool summer foods to be on the lookout for:

• Fruits such as strawberries, watermelon, pears, pineapples, plums, mangoes
• Vegetables such as summer squash, broccoli, corn
• Herbs such as cilantro and peppermint

Find out what’s fresh near you! http://www.localharvest.org/