CONSCIOUS CONSUMERISM
Published: October 1, 2024
Updated: January 23, 2025
Looking for ways to make sustainability more fun—tastier, perhaps? Meet us at the farmers’ market because it’s time to start eating in season! In short, eating seasonally means choosing to shop, cook, and eat produce that would naturally grow and thrive in the same season you’re in. Why do it? For starters, it’s significantly more delicious (trust us), and perhaps most importantly it’s better for you, better for the earth, and better for those who tend the soil. Here’s why:
If you have the means to do it, eating the freshest possible produce means denser nutrients with every bite! Almost all produce will slowly but surely lose vitamin content over time, starting as soon as the day it's harvested, so the faster it goes from farm to table the better. If a farmers’ market isn’t an easy or accessible option for you, frozen and canned produce can be sourced in-season and frozen or preserved in time to maintain its nutritional value.
Not so fun fact: By the time you shop, the average grocery store apple was picked from its tree more than 9 months ago… When there’s demand for out-of-season produce, food suppliers and grocery stores will do what’s necessary to sell. That means your favorite off-season fruit or vegetable is likely treated with potentially unsafe preservatives and stored for months at a time, wasting energy. It’s also often imported from far-off places, contributing to high transport emissions.
When you shop local, in-season produce at a farmers’ market—or a grocery store that partners directly with local farms—you’re eliminating the many middle men of the modern food chain and investing directly back into the hands that (literally!) feed you! Planting crops in line with the seasons also promotes essential biodiversity in our ecosystem—and while planting the same crop over and over in the same location eventually depletes the soil of its natural resources and minerals, allowing farmers to align with the natural seasons keeps their crops healthy and sustainable over a longer period of time!
Fall:
Apples
Beets
Broccoli
Pears
Sweet Potatoes
Arugula
Carrots
Figs
Squash
Eggplant
Winter:
Beets
Brussels Sprouts
Grapefruit
Leeks
Oranges
Yams
Pomegranates
Parsnips
Pears
Pumpkin
Spring:
Apricots
Asparagus
Bananas
Celery
Lemons
Mushrooms
Peas
Radishes
Rhubarb
Onions
Summer:
Avocados
Strawberries
Raspberries
Lima Beans
Cherries
Corn
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Green Beans
Plums
The perfect way to start cutting out single use plastic from your home.