Eat Seasonally
It’s only been a relatively recent development that people have had access to any piece of produce at any time of year. Grocery stores have spoiled us into thinking that blueberries and peaches are available in the winter, when in fact in our area they’re naturally in season in the summer. In fact, most of the fruit in stores in the winter has traveled thousands of miles from warmer regions to be available here, losing nutrients every mile of the way.
If you shop for your produce in the grocery store, you’ll probably notice that root vegetables, squash, chard and kale are readily available in the fall and winter; they might even be on special! That’s because there is a surplus of those vegetables because they’re actually in season that time of year. Similarly, berries and stone fruits are more often seen in the summer, and you can even find great deals on them. But, if you try and buy the same fruits in the winter, they’re going to cost an arm and a leg.
Rather than importing produce from other states and countries , we ought to be eating what’s locally available in each season, that’s what our ancestors did after all! Eating seasonally is budget friendly (because of the surplus when food is in season), healthier (less travel=more nutrients) AND it encourages culinary variety and creativity. By the time you’ve reinvented butternut squash in as many ways as you can think of (roasted, sauced, pureed, fried), a new season will have sprung bringing a whole new slate of produce to explore!
Because we partner with only local farmers, your boxes will contain what is in season, which means you are supporting sustainable farming practices, the local economy, and your budget! To help you think of creative and delicious ways to use seasonal produce, we’re publishing a cookbook to coincide with each season. The first cookbook will feature 85 pages of spring recipes, and we’ll let you know as soon as it’s available!
Until then, you can use this chart made available by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to see when crops are in season to keep track of when your favorites will be readily available!
For a more detailed listing, check out this site: http://localfoods.about.com/od/searchbystate/a/virginiaseasons.html
