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local produce tastes better

Why fresh local produce tastes so different

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Case Study: Celery


– By Kristin Henderson, Chief Veggie Communicator

It’s celery season out on the Flores family’s farm on Virginia’s Northern Neck. Gerardo and his son Omar are harvesting fresh, aromatic celery bunches from their fields. Then our veggie fairies deliver it straight to you within just a couple days.

If you ever needed proof that freshly harvested local produce tastes better than the stuff you get at the grocery story (which is at least a week old), do a celery taste test.

What is celery really supposed to taste like?

Until I discovered fresh local food, I thought celery was supposed to taste like grocery store celery – bitter or, at best, blah – useful as a crunchy delivery vehicle for peanut butter, various cheeses, or hummus, but otherwise best hidden in soups, stews, or salads.

Compared to that, the first time I bit into freshly harvested celery, the taste was a revelation. It was loaded with so much zingy flavor that I ate it all by itself as a snack. When I roasted it, that peppery flavor turned sweet. And when I made cream of celery soup with it, as much as I love any kind of grass-fed creaminess, I had to admit the celery was the star of the show.

Lots of flavor, lots of nutrients

If produce is full of flavor, that’s a good indicator that it’s full of nutrients as well. Flavor and nutrients go hand in hand – the longer produce sits around after it’s been harvested, the more they both fade away. Check out how much nutritional value is lost during the week (or more!) that it takes most produce to get from the farm to the grocery store.

So when produce is bursting with flavor, it’s usually bursting with nutrients, too. In the case of celery, that includes B vitamins, and vitamins A, C, and K, plus potassium, calcium, folate, and fiber.

Why does fresh local celery taste so different?

I’ve already mentioned one of the biggest reasons: the amount of time between when it’s picked and when you eat it. Grocery stores just can’t compete with local produce that’s home-delivered within a couple days of harvest, the way Seasonal Roots’ produce is. Even grocery stores that carry local food can’t offer it to you until after it makes its way through the delivery and warehousing system… which all takes time.

But there are other reasons why our local produce tastes better and is better for you. It starts with the dirt. Our local family farmers use sustainable practices to keep their soil nutrient-rich so the produce they grow in that soil can then absorb those nutrients.

Next, because our produce doesn’t have to sit in a warehouse, our farmers can pick it at the peak of ripeness, after it has soaked up all the flavor and nutrients that it can get from Mother Nature. Produce that’s picked early for a long trip may turn the right color along the way, but it doesn’t gain any nutrients or flavor in the process.

Also, during our more direct delivery process, our local produce gets handled less. So it’s less likely to get bruised, cut, or damaged. Damage speeds up the natural deterioration that makes flavor and nutrition go bye-bye.

Gerardo and Omar’s celery comes fresh from their fields with the flavor, nutrients, and roots still attached. Eat it raw or use it to cook up something amazing! We’ve got lots of healthy, tasty celery ideas on our Pinterest celery board.

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS


Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, eggs, grass-fed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

organic local sustainable

Organic vs Local vs Sustainable

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EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / November 1, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

ORGANIC vs LOCAL vs SUSTAINABLE: WHICH IS BEST?!!

We get this question pretty much daily: “So are your farms Certified Organic?” When people ask that, we totally get where they’re coming from. We all just want to eat nutritious, safe, non-toxic, eco-friendly food. But who has time to research every item we buy? So the government’s “Certified Organic” label seems like a convenient shortcut to eating healthy without harming the planet. If only it were true.
Here at Seasonal Roots, we’re more concerned about sustainable and local than organic, so we don’t require our local farmers to be Certified Organic. Here are 5 reasons why…

Continue reading the 5 reasons why, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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avoid junk food shop local food

Use this simple trick to avoid junk food

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The solution is online

– By the Veggie Fairy Team

That candy in the checkout line – is it calling to you? Do those processed foods in the supermarket aisles have the power to turn your good intentions to mush?

Apparently, the best way to stay strong, reduce impulse purchases, and keep junk food out of your life is to shop online.

Impulsive much?

In a new study, 60 college students filled out questionnaires that assessed their levels of impulsiveness. The questionnaires also probed how they respond to the presence of food.

Previous research had shown that people who are more impulsive may be less healthy than less impulsive people. In a grocery store, impulsiveness could lead to a shopping cart filled with junk food.

So after filling out the questionnaires, the students were told they had $48.50 for grocery shopping, and were asked to fill an online shopping cart with nutritious, affordable, and tasty foods.

When they were done, researchers calculated the nutritional value of all the food in each student’s online shopping cart. The result: There was no link between the foods a student chose and how impulsive the student was.

But if they’d been shopping in a grocery store, the impulsive students probably would have gone home with more junk food than they’d planned on. Shopping online seemed to help them make better choices.

The findings are preliminary, and more research is needed to confirm the results, but the study suggests that online grocery shopping can help you stick to a healthy diet.

Not all online shopping is created equal

Shopping at your online farmers market boosts the health benefit even more. That’s because local food is fresher than the produce you can typically get from supermarkets and grocery stores, whether you’re shopping those supermarkets in person or online.

The grocery store system takes at least a week to deliver produce from the farm to the store. The Seasonal Roots system takes just a couple days from Dirt to Doorstep®. The fresher the food, the more nutrients (and flavor) it still has. When it comes to healthy eating, you just can’t beat it! Get more details here.

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

National Farmers Market Week

National Farmers Market Week: What’s in it for you?

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5 reasons why markets are worth celebrating every week!

– By the Veggie Fairy Team

National Farmers Market Week is all about the markets that serve as a bridge between farmers and families. Whether they’re in-person farmers markets or online farmers markets like Seasonal Roots, local farmers markets…

farmers markets increase access to nutritious food

#1 Increase access to nutritious food

Online markets use today’s technology to restore an old school connection to our food. 91% of market shoppers use mobile applications, the most convenient way to build bridges between families and farmers, and save time, too. Seasonal Roots home-delivers affordable local food within about 48 hours from Dirt to Doorstep(R), compared to a week or more at grocery stores. And the more fresh it is, the more nutritious it is!

farmers markets support healthy communities

#2 Support healthy communities

Proximity to farmers markets is associated with lower body mass index. Shopping at a farmers market produces healthier eating habits. Shoppers know it from experience. Leslie M posted about it on Facebook, writing, “I absolutely love receiving my fresh, local produce deliveries each week from Seasonal Roots. The selection and options and the amount of produce you get is just fantastic. We eat so much healthier with these fruits, veggies, eggs, etc., arriving at our door each week.”

farmers markets promote sustainability

#3 Promote sustainability

Locally or regionally sourced produce typically travels 27 times less far than grocery store produce. All Seasonal Roots farmers rely on sustainable farming practices like integrated pest management, low- or no-spray, cover crops, crop and livestock rotation, reduced tillage, on-site composting, and reduced water consumption. Nationally, 81% of farmers market vendors do the same.

National Farmers Market Week

#4 Stimulate local economies

Growers selling locally create 13 full time jobs per $1 million in revenue earned. Those not selling locally create only 3. Locally owned retailers, such as farmers markets, return more than 3 times as much of their sales to the local economy compared to chain competitors. Seasonal Roots provides work for more than 100 people and supports dozens of local farmers and food artisans.

farmers markets preserve farmland

#5 Preserve farmland and rural livelihoods

The US loses an acre of farmland to development every minute of the day. The market is the sole source of income for 25% of farmers market vendors. Farmers markets provide one of the only low-barrier entry points for new farmers, allowing them to start small as they learn and test the market.

View this post as an infographic.

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

industrial agriculture drought vs fresh local food

Industrial agriculture vs fresh local food

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What happens when the water runs out?

– By Duane Slyder, Head Veggie Fairy & founder of Seasonal Roots:

A few years ago, I visited California’s Tulare County (pictured) with the Northern Neck Growers Association and 21 of Virginia’s finest farmers. We toured fields full of almond trees, sweet potatoes, lettuce, radicchio, and more.

Tulare County is the top agricultural producing county in the U.S., even though its natural state is desert-like. Average rainfall is just 7 inches. When intensive farming started there 50 years ago, farmers relied on snowfall in the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains to provide water for their summer crops. But then came years of severe drought. There was little snow to be seen when I was there.

Industrial agriculture has its limits

So we were walking with one of Tanimura & Antle’s field managers, Rob, in a 1500-acre field of mixed lettuce. I suddenly realized that I had actually bought some of their heads at a Virginia Kroger during our winter holiday hiatus that year – small world! Rob said with the drought, he and other farmers had been denied access to the mountain water they’d always relied on. They were forced to get all their water from wells, which were drying up. With so little experience on the land, they don’t know what they’re going to do in the long term.

California’s long drought was a warning: In the future, America may not be able to rely on far away places like Tulare County to provide so much of the nation’s produce. Experts say California will be short of water forever.

Farmer Joe Step came with us on that trip. His family has been farming their 120 acres in Virginia – growing broccoli, barley, and cucumbers – for 130 years. He plans to keep on farming. His family knows how to survive droughts and grow produce sustainably with the future in mind. Because he’s local, we can then deliver his produce to you within a couple of days, Dirt to Doorstep(R), while it’s still full of nutrients and flavor.

Support local farmers today… so they’ll be here when we need them tomorrow

This is why we founded Seasonal Roots: To make sure farmers like Joe, who know how to feed us, can keep on farming… so you can keep on getting the freshest food possible. That’s only possible when it’s local. When it comes to maximizing nutrients and flavor, industrial agriculture just can’t deliver. Thank you for making this important local food mission part of your life!

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

fresh local food - sustainable agriculture - lettuce

This is why fresh local food is better for you

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The most delicious way to take your vitamins

– By the Veggie Fairy Team:

What’s the most delicious way to take your vitamins? Eating fresh local food direct from local farmers! It’s not just more delicious — it’s also better for you than trying to get your vitamins from supplements or even grocery store produce. Here’s why.

Fresh local produce is whole food

According to the Mayo Clinic, whole foods like the farm-fresh produce you get from Seasonal Roots give you three things that dietary supplements can’t:

1. More nutrition. Whole foods are complex. That means they have a variety of the micronutrients your body needs — not just one. Take leafy greens, for example, like the lettuce pictured here, grown by Gerardo Flores and his son Omar on Virginia’s Northern Neck. It’s got vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B-6, plus thiamine, riboflavins, beta carotene, folates, zeaxanthin, iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Whew! Scientists think all these compounds probably work together to help your body process those nutrients and get the most out of them. A lot of the vitamin content in a pill is wasted without the supportive team of natural compounds your body needs to absorb it.

2. Essential fiber. Whole foods, which include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, give you dietary fiber. Fiber does more than keep you regular. Most high-fiber foods are also packed with other essential nutrients. Studies show that when your healthy eating includes fiber, it helps prevent diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

3. Nature’s body armor. Fruits and vegetables contain naturally occurring substances called phytochemicals. These little guys may help protect you against cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Many of them also protect you with antioxidants, which slow down oxidation — a natural process that leads to cell and tissue damage. That kind of damage is associated with aging and cancer.

But oxidation isn’t just your enemy. Vitamins have enemies, too. Which brings us to grocery stores.

Local + fresh = more vitamins

A fresh-picked peach is a sweet, delicious way to get 11% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamins C and A, and 5% of the RDA for vitamin E… that is, IF you eat it while it’s still fresh.

Vitamins are more vulnerable to oxidation than almost any other nutrient. Air, light, and heat are part of the oxidation process. As soon as a fruit or vegetable is picked, those three things start doing their best to kill the vitamins in the produce. It’s a race against time.

So the fresher your produce is, the more vitamins it still has. That’s why the produce you get direct from local farmers is better for you than produce from the grocery store. Store-bought produce travels at least a week to get there, on average… and often longer. By then those fragile vitamins are fading away, along with the flavor.

The local produce at Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market comes to you straight from the fields of our family farmers. No middlemen, no storage, no long distance travel. So when you take your first bite, it’s still fresh and vitamin-rich – not to mention full of delicious flavor, too.

WHEN it’s picked makes a difference

Our farmers wait until their produce is fully ripe before they pick it. This allows the sun and rain to maximize the flavor and vitamins inside every fruit and vegetable.

That stuff in the grocery store from California, Mexico, or beyond — conventional and organic alike — it was all picked early ahead of its long journey. By the time it gets to you, it may look ripe. But it’s an empty shell compared to the amount of flavor and vitamins in field-ripened produce.

Fresh local food is Grandma’s healthy eating

Modern varieties of produce have been developed to meet the storage and rough handling needs of industrial agriculture — at a price. Modern produce looks good but it’s short on nutrients.

Since our farmers’ produce doesn’t have to endure long, rough trips, they can grow old-fashioned heirloom varieties that have still got all the flavor and nutrition of yesteryear. The old-school broccoli your grandmother ate was much better for her than the broccoli you’ll find in grocery stores today. With fresh local food, you can go back in time and eat that healthful broccoli too.

Sustainability gives you a vitamin boost, too!

All our local family farmers are committed to using sustainable farming practices. Not only does that lower our carbon footprint. It also adds to the benefits of healthy eating that you get from fresh local food. That’s because sustainability includes:

  • Low- or no-spray. Our farmers work with nature instead of against it to manage pests.
  • Healthy soil. Our farmers use crop rotation, cover crops, reduced tillage, careful water management, and more to enrich the soil naturally instead of relying on chemicals. You can see some of those methods demonstrated in Gerardo’s lettuce crop, pictured above.

    Bottom line: Healthy eating starts with fresh local food!

    ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

    Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

    • ugly food fresh local sustainable

    We love ugly food!

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    What does truly fresh produce look like?

    – By the Veggie Fairy Team:

    The external appearance of modern produce tells you very little about what’s inside.

    Big Corporate Agriculture grows its produce all over the world, usually wherever they can get the job done the cheapest. That means the produce has to be able to survive at least a week, and sometimes months, of travel and storage before it gets to a grocery store.

    So Big Ag has focused on developing varieties of produce that have a long shelf life and are tough enough to withstand the rough handling that’s part of industrial agriculture. Nutrition and flavor are not Big Ag’s priority, even when the label says organic.

    If there isn’t much in the way of nutrients and flavor on the inside, all you’ve got left is the outside. So fragile fruits like berries get sprayed with perservatives and veggies get waxed. Anything that looks less than perfect gets tossed. It’s all about appearances. Sure, that grocery store produce looks fresh. But it’s fake fresh.

    Our local farmers choose to grow produce varieties that are known for their flavor, not their shelf life. If it happens to look pretty too, that’s just icing on the cake. But since they don’t rely on pesticides, sometimes there are signs that a bug has sampled it first.

    Plus, our farmers let their produce grow until the day it reaches its ripe, nutritional peak. They don’t pick it early in preparation for a long trip (which cuts short its nutrients and flavor, even though it may have technically “ripened” by the time it reaches its destination.)

    After our farmers harvest it, we don’t douse it in preservatives or wax. We simply chill it and deliver it to you quickly, while it’s still really and truly fresh – which we can do because we’re local.

    So that’s why we love ugly food. If it’s ugly, nibbled, or oddly shaped, that’s just proof that it’s good for the planet and good for us!

    Fresh = perishable . . . and if it perishes, we want to know!

    The fact is, real fresh food is very perishable. That’s why we check and double check each item before it reaches you. If something falls through the cracks we want to know! Report it the next time you order.

    Here’s how:

  • After you make your choices and click “Save And Review My Order”, scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on “Report Issue With Last Order” then follow the directions. Be sure to click on the green “Submit Issue” button when you’re done!
  • Or sign in anytime and hover over the purple gear icon in the upper right corner. From the drop down menu, select “Report An Issue”, then follow those directions.

    • If the item came in your basket, we’ll replace it. If it was an Extra, we’ll issue a credit. We always stand behind the quality of our fresh, local food!

    How do you keep fresh food fresh?

    Pretty or ugly, the best way to get the full benefit of all the nutrients and flavor in fresh food is to eat it right away. Of course, that’s not always possible, so check out our series on how to make your fresh food last longer.

    ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

    Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.