Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables

Why choose seasonal fruits and vegetables?

To answer this question we have to talk again about the three pillars of C.H.E Food Revolution: Cheap, Healthy and Ethical Food Revolution.

• It is Cheaper: it costs much less than the early grown fruits; those cultivated with “forced agriculture” in greenhouses or those imported from remote places, where there is an opposite season to ours;

• it is Healthier: definitely richer in nutrients such as vitamins and antioxidants (1,2,3), as it is harvested at the right point of ripeness when all values are at their peak;

• it is more Ethical: because it contributes to the local economy and to the well-being of local producers by allowing them to bypass large-scale distribution;

• it is more sustainable, because it does not deplete the soil with the excessive “care” caused by the most harmful trio of agriculture, i.e. excessive irrigation, synthetic fertilization and reckless use of pesticides.

• it is poorer in pesticides or agrochemicals – in some out-of-season food, their amount can even reach up to 50% higher levels(4).

• Seasonal food also reduces the carbon footprint of conventional agriculture, limiting overseas imports and eliminating the use of fossil energy used to heat greenhouses and/or produce the aforementioned pesticides and fertilizers on which current production practices are based.

• For last but not least it reduces the use of plastics both those used in greenhouse construction and those used in packaging to protect the produces during the long period from harvest to sale.

• And of course, it should be added without hesitation, seasonal fruits and vegetables have the best taste.
  The food when grown and harvested in the right season is simply perfect and calibrated for its organoleptic properties. There is no comparison with the ridiculous ‘simulations’, grown in greenhouses or harvested too early so they don’t spoil during the long ocean transport. As well as having the right color and shape, in season produces also have the genuine aroma and flavor, without the unwabted floury and fibrous texture, typical of winter tomatoes and strawberries.

That’s why we have to decline the kind offer of the “food pushers”, and choose the fresh produces of the season, stocking up them from the local medium-small producers; regardless of whether they are ugly, maybe even more expensive, but able to pay off in many other ways.

At the time of writing these lines I’m in the Algarve, Portugal. From the bedroom window I see the oranges and lemons converting their wonderfully fragrant flowers into green fruits, which will ripen in the next few months; during walks inland we often come across medlars overflowing with ripe fruit; we see the marvelous, bright red flowers of pomegranates; and the mulberries, displaying their precious load of half-unripe and half-ripe fruit. There is no doubt, here is late spring. And what is the season at your place?