Seasonal Produce for the Summertime

Seasonal produce offers benefits:

• Point 1: Better taste and quality when harvested at peak ripeness, avoiding issues like blandness and dryness.
• Point 2: Higher nutrition levels in peak season fruits and vegetables, with various health benefits from different colors.
• Point 3: Cost-effective due to abundant supply, supporting local growers and reducing environmental impact. Consider using in-season produce for healthy meals and snacks in summer.

Call to action: Think about how you can use in-season fruits and vegetables to make healthy meals and snacks throughout the summer. 

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Transcript

Seasonal Produce 
 

• Point 1: Seasonal produce tastes better! When harvesting fruits and vegetables at their peak ripeness, the flavors and colors are at their most tantalizing and best quality. If you bite into a strawberry in the wintertime, it may taste bland, be very firm and almost dry. In the late spring and early summer, if you pluck a strawberry right out of the field, you’ll experience the deep red color, soft flesh and the perfect amount of juicy sweetness that you expect from a strawberry. Harvesting too early, long storage times, chemical usage and transportation are all concerns for quality of produce that are largely eliminated when purchasing in season. 

• Point 2: Produce in season is more nutritious. Fruits and vegetables that are picked in peak season contain the most vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants, and eating a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables helps to ensure that you are getting the best of their nutritional value! Darker fruits like plums, blackberries, and blueberries may reduce the chance of stroke and can improve memory. Blue and purple fruits and vegetables like cranberries, purple grapes, raisins and eggplants have nutritional properties that can help boost urinary tract health, memory function, and promote healthy aging. Summertime brings some of my favorite fruits and vegetables with lots of yellow and greens. Green vegetables like cucumber, zucchini, and spinach are high in vitamin K and potassium and help support strengthening of bones, immunity, improved vision, and dark green, leafy vegetables have the highest concentration of antioxidants and fiber and can provide the perfect base for a delicious summer salad! Yellow fruits and vegetables available in the summer, like mango and squash are high in vitamin C, vitamin A, and potassium which aid the immune system. Lastly, tomatoes, strawberries, watermelons and cherries that are beautifully red have nutrients that improve heart health. When eaten in-season, fruits and vegetables are less likely to have been held in storage for long periods of time or have undergone artificial ripening. When foods that are not in season have to be flown in from other areas where they are able to grow, produce has to be harvested long before it is ripe, so it never gets to develop its full nutritional potential as it would have if it had been able to mature on the vine or in the ground. 

• Point 3: Produce that is in season is typically less expensive. When you think about supply and demand, when produce is in-season, it is abundantly available and much easier to get your hands on, meaning you are not having to pay the premium prices that come along with not having enough supply to meet the greater demands. Seasonal eating also allows you to support local growers who sell their produce at farmers markets and gives you the opportunity to meet the people who are growing your food. You can ask questions and get to know more about their growing and harvesting practices and make an impact on the environment by lessening the need for increased land and water use, soil degradation, pollution, and reducing the carbon footprint associated with long-distance transportation. 

Call to action: Think about how you can use in-season fruits and vegetables to make healthy meals and snacks throughout the summer.