Seasonal Eating: Why a Seasonal Diet is Beneficial for Your Health
Seasonal eating isn’t a fad – it’s the way humans have enjoyed food since the beginning of agriculture & beyond. The ability to purchase zucchini in December or a side of salmon in April is relatively novel ‘accomplishment’ of modern supply management & global food chains. The problem as we’ve discussed in earlier posts, these supply chains are complex & relatively fragile.
The illusion they create of plenty & abundance is compelling – but it’s built on truly shaky ground. Our entire food system is based on a “just in time” premise due to the perishable nature of fresh ingredients. This premise dictates that just enough food arrives just in time for point of sale. More is reliably on its way to meet the needs of tomorrow.
Seasonal eating tends to go hand in hand with the locavore movement & in inherently sturdier then a global supply chain. Seasonal eating as a practice dictates that we choose our meals based on ingredients available locally at any given time throughout the year.

Foods are Better in Season
Aside from the benefit of food security, seasonal foods are superior to imported options. The truth of this is easily demonstrated to anyone standing in a strawberry patch in July. Ask them to do a blind taste test comparing a fresh picked berry with an imported one that has travelled 1,500 miles (2400 kilometers).
We are conditioned in our culture to think of health with respect to the measurable, quantifiable aspects that relate to our body’s performance. We’ll talk about those specifics in a minute but it’s also important to discuss health in a broader sense. That broader sense includes mental & spiritual wellness.
Seasonal eating rewards us in every aspect. The idea of ‘comfort food’ makes this readily apparent. We all desire to be nourished fully & completely & too often settle for meals eaten alone, in a rush, & void of nutrition simply because our lifestyles have come to demand it.
Our instinct to choose fresh food grown & prepared with care isn’t an elitist or bourgeois mentality – it’s a universal preference. It’s what we all ultimately want to eat if we are given the choice.
Understanding the Association Between Freshness & Flavour
It stands to reason that something eaten at the peak of its freshness is going to taste better or be richer in intensity. Fresh tomatoes still hot from the summer sun just taste better! The question is why? This comes down to a number of factors. The main one being a measurement farmers use to understand the ripeness & vigour of a plant called “brix“. Brix is fundamentally a measurement of a plant’s sugars. After years of research, agronomists have determined that healthy plants produce a brix value of 12 or higher. In doing so, they also determined that a plant is more susceptible to insect damage when that value falls below 10. Some crops, such as grapes for wine making, are best harvested at a brix of 18.
Brix isn’t just about how good a grape tastes to us, either. Grass farmers & stockmen use brix to measure the sugars in grasses & forages. Peak value determines the best time for turning ruminants onto a particular field. If sugars seem like an incomplete measure of a plants health, remember that sugars are the bi-product of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a plant producing its own food from the sun, soil and rain. An optimum brix value is also closely correlated to bioavailability of soil mineral though the mechanics of this aren’t totally understood.
Here is the key takeaway from all of this: brix is a measure of optimum plant health & vitality. This in turn translates into nutrient density & flavour for us.
Nutrient Density & Seasonality
“Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand; Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil, the corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home”
E.C. Stedman, the Feast of Harvest
The next important aspect to all of this that relates directly to seasonality – brix begins to degrade once harvested. Again flavour is our key indicator here that not all produce is created equal. That tomato harvested in the afternoon sun & enjoyed at dinner has a higher brix value & better flavour than the tomato cut from the vine & allowed to ripen in transport to its final destination. Even as the plant continues to ‘ripen’ it has begun decaying before it ever fully matured.
Its not totally understood, but it stands to reason that the bioavailability of nutrients would also be closely related to the breakdown of brix. The explosion of the vitamin industry since WW2 coincides with the rise of refrigerated air transport globally. The ability to purchase produce out of season from anywhere in the world has come at a cost. We have greater access to food than ever before but much of it is depleted in nutritional value.
Preserving Seasonal Ingredients for Year Round Abundance
Preserving seasonal food ensures that nothing goes to waste. Foods are harvested during their peak nutritional value & flavour & properly stored for use throughout the year. This might seem counter intuitive to the entire philosophy of seasonal eating, but it truly goes hand in hand. Rather than opting for fresh South American blueberries in January, you can enjoy a hascap berry crumble and recall the afternoon you spent harvesting them way back in July – even as Winter howls outside your kitchen window.
We sometimes refer to preserving as “putting by” – storing up todays abundance to guard against tomorrow’s shortfalls. Putting by is an essential hallmark of all the great food cultures from around the world. I’m of course not talking about the un-inspiring canned asparagus spears on a shelf in the grocer. Rather I’m talking about those hand written recipes past down from family member to family member, these are the preserves canned at the peak of flavour.
Incorporating Preserves in Your Kitchen
In today’s world of convenience preserves are enjoyed as a novelty for the flavour rather than being regarded as essential staples. If we are to embrace seasonal eating fully, then that means finding room in our kitchens for preserved foods. It means making time in our routines for the practice of putting by for future enjoyment. Your January self will thank you.
This really comes into play late in winter & in early spring when the shelf stable ingredients are scarce and the fresh greens have yet to emerge. I like to keep some of my late spring preserves like cherries, strawberries & pickled scapes for this time of year. They serve as a reminder of what’s just around the corner. By March when the days are just starting to get longer but the snow refuses to melt, these preserves are a great boost to morale & a good way to incorporate spring ingredients in seasonally specific meals.
Seasonal Eating Reduces Your Carbon Footprint
Consolidation in the food production system has added incredible mileage to the ingredients we enjoy – often items at the grocery store appear cheaper than a local alternative & are available longer than a local counterpart. As small local processing plants disappear they are replaced with larger remote centralized ones. Raw ingredients travel farther & farther. The apparent cheap cost of grocery store ingredients depends largely on a single factor; cheap oil.
As the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise, diversification, decentralization and local specialization in food processing becomes a no-brainer. Going back to that previous number of 1,500 miles per ingredient, it becomes obvious that our global food system has a horrible carbon footprint to take responsibility for.
If cutting down or minimizing your household’s environmental burden is a priority for you, then seasonal eating is a great strategy to achieve that goal.
If you have enjoyed learning about the health benefits of seasonal eating, you might be wondering where to start or how to make the switch to a seasonal diet in your household. Check back next week for the follow up post where I’ll take a deep dive into the how-tos!