Eating in Season – Join the Challenge!

My favorite part of summer? That’s easy: the incredible amount of fresh, locally-grown produce available in most places. I’m lucky to live in Michigan, which surprisingly has the greatest variety of produce of any state except California (and given the drought there, we might soon be #1?). The western side of the state specializes in fruit orchards – apples and stone fruit predominate – and fresh veggies abound all over.

We moved to Michigan from Southern California, where we lived next door to the Torrance Farmers’ Market – a huge affair that happens on Saturdays with over 60 vendors and again on Tuesdays with around 40 vendors. There we learned to love local produce and the farmers that grow it. On a recent visit, we went back to the market and felt as though we were seeing old friends – two of the fruit vendors even remembered my son, who was a regular at their tasting tables!

Back at the Torrance Farmers' Market
Back at the Torrance Farmers’ Market

In California, we reveled in Asian veggies (they even inspired my first blog), which are not so available in Michigan – my daughter claims that if you ask a grocer here about them, they’ll say, “Oh yes, we have Asian vegetables – we have bok choy!” But more and more of our local Michigan farmers are branching out into mizuna, tatsoi, garlic chives, and more.

In California, we ate fresh tomatoes 10 months out of the year, and I was told by my daughter in no uncertain terms that I should NOT buy tomatoes at the grocery store ever again: “They’re just tomatoes in training!” So now we really do go without tomatoes 8-9 months of the year unless my tiny plot yields enough to freeze for a modest extension of the season.

Michigan has a much shorter growing season than California, so we’ve learned to not only eat locally but seasonally as well. Happily, many local farmers have hoop houses – passive solar greenhouses made of aluminum frames and plastic sheeting – that can extend the growing season to as long as 10-12 months! No, we don’t get tomatoes year-round, but we are able to purchase shares in year-round CSAs (community supported agriculture) and get some hardy greens, late autumn/winter squash, and storage crops such as onions, potatoes, carrots, etc. Fruit is much less available in the winter, although we are able to get local apples through our independent grocer most of the winter and spring.

My first harvest from the garden this year!
My first harvest from the garden this year!

What’s it like eating about 75-80% local? Well, we do get awfully sick of some veggies, and it’s a good thing berry season starts just as the last apples are getting a bit too wrinkly and mealy and the need for a handy school lunchbox fruit disappears. We find ourselves awaiting each season with great anticipation: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, melons, peaches, cherries, and nectarines…. When the season hits, we gorge on the bounty, and by the time we’re sick of that fruit, the next one’s in season.

The same applies to vegetables – after a long winter of kale, we greet the first asparagus with joy…and then happily bid it goodbye when we’ve had it at every meal for a month! After waiting all winter and spring for tomatoes, we eat them at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and sometimes still have some left to freeze for making tomato sauce during the fall and winter.

Farmers’ market trio

And what has changed in our house with eating a seasonal diet?

  • We’ve learned to love each fruit and vegetable in season, and we appreciate the flavor and texture much more than when they come from the store year-round.
  • We don’t shell out exorbitant amounts of money on strawberries in January – in addition to being priced ridiculously high, they just aren’t worth it.
  • When fruits and veggies abound, we eat much less animal protein – it’s not as appealing and it’s too hot to cook it. We go from eating 1-2 vegetarian dinners a week to eating 2-4. When the weather gets cold, we eat more animal products and the soups and stews we crave.
  • I realized that it’s silly for me to eat cold salads in the winter – the lettuce is not as tasty from the store (where it landed after being trucked thousands of miles), and I just feel colder if I eat them instead of the hot meal I crave. About three weeks ago, just as local lettuce became available, it was as if a switch was flipped and I suddenly craved salad at least once a day.
  • I am finally not freezing cold all winter – my husband even commented that my hands and feet didn’t feel cold all winter, which used to be a common complaint. And summer heat also seems much more manageable (just ask my officemates, with whom I wage a daily war to reduce the A/C use).
  • While the kids still pick up various bugs at school, they seems to be sick less and recover more quickly than their classmates – and my husband and I don’t seem to catch anything from them!

The Challenge

  • Whether you are a vegetarian or vegan or omnivore, I challenge you to experiment with eating seasonally – frozen animal proteins are usually plentiful, but if you can find never-been frozen chicken, you’ll realize that it, too, is seasonal.
  • Not sure what’s in season in your region right now? Check out the interactive map from Epicurious.
  • Shop at your local farmers’ market and/or buy a share in a CSA – you can search Local Harvest by ZIP code to find local farmers who sell directly to consumers. (And I hear they sometimes have coupons for first-time CSA members!) Ask your local grocery store what produce they source locally, and tell them you would like to see more of it!
  • Try using local, seasonal fruits and vegetables for at least 25% of your produce, then gradually increase the percentage – it’s fun to make a game of it.
  • Be conscious about how you feel – keep a journal if that helps! What do you notice about your health? Your grocery bill?

Let me know how you do and how you feel – leave a comment or check in on Facebook!