In our days people are used to the fact that they can eat whatever they want whenever they want because there is almost nothing that they cannot find in supermarkets. Nonetheless, we have to consider that this isn’t exactly good for the environment, not to mention flavor and cost.
Climate
In the majority of the cases the fruits and vegetables that we buy during the winter travel about 21,000 km before they get to us. Think about all the greenhouse gases that are emitted in that time. It also takes a lot of energy to refrigerate the goods, to prepare them and to package them. The non-seasonal products need a lot of energy to get from the fields to the table of your family.
Flavor
As it has been mentioned, food that isn’t seasonal doesn’t have such a good flavor. Why? In the majority of the cases the goods have to be picked earlier, and so they don’t go through the transit period.
Since they are harvested too early, the flavor nutrients don’t develop as they should. This is the reason for which the tomatoes that you get during winter are paler and they don’t have such a rich flavor.
In case you eat seasonal food produced by local farmers, the products are picked right before they are sold, and so they contain more nutrients and flavors, and the color is also more appetizing.
Financial aspects
Have you ever wondered why products that aren’t seasonal are more expensive than the others? This is because the price of the food that you buy also contains the costs of storage and transportation. Most probably you know what we are talking about in case you bought some tomatoes in the winter or mandarins in the summer.
What should you buy?
As winter comes, you could be thinking about which products are worth to be bought. Although there aren’t millions of possibilities, you could be thinking about apples, broad beans, beetroot, broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrot, cabbage, cauliflower, grapefruit, celery, kiwi fruit, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, lettuce, lemons, mandarins, lime, oranges, parsnips, parsley, pears, rhubarb, potatoes, snow peas, silverbeet, spinach, turnips and also spring onion.
These products are less expensive than the rest, not to mention that they are healthier because they have more nutrients, and since they are produced locally, they have a smaller impact in the environment that the ones brought from far away.
