Change Your Diet with the Seasons?

Seasonal eating is something we would have found easy to practice way back when we only had access to locally grown foods for the most part and had to preserve as much of our own for use later in the colder months.

Of course there is a fair amount of scientific and anecdotal support as well as common sense in this thinking while adhering to some very simple food ideas as much as possible. Eating organic, local, in season as well as unprocessed will take you pretty far down the road towards healthy digestive function. 

But why is that the case?

First of all organic should be a no-brainer for most of us - of course the presence of far less pesticide is better for you. How would more chemicals and poisons be good in any way? I have heard it said (it was attached to some sort of research) that organic is not any different from conventionally grown produce. I would love to know where they found the organic food used for the testing so I can avoid it, because it should be different. 

And yes, eating locally grown produce as much as possible would also make sense to those of us who consider carefully everything that goes into our mouths. Local food would not have travelled ten thousand miles to get to us, meaning it would at least be fresher. And usually it should contain local soil bacteria commonly found in our guts. All good for us.

When it comes to eating in season, what could possibly be wrong with eating strawberries in January or fresh peas at Solstice and Christmas when you live in a Northern climate? As an intuitive I would say it has to do with the lining of our guts, the bacteria living there and digestion (back to this again). 

The seasons on the outside of us change (in some locations they do) this also reflects an inner change. Right now for instance the gut is growing thinner towards the darkest time of the year. Until we reach Halloween - a time when we acknowledge the thinning of the veil between the worlds. 

This veil becomes thinner on the inside of us too. Meaning it is a good time to cut back on excesses in diet, hunker down for the winter, eat foods which will keep - root vegetables, a little fruit - and easily digested produce such as preserved foods. As much as possible. 

Gut flora undergoes the same seasonal changes inside of our bodies as the does the environment outside. Therefore, our ability to digest each of these foods changes with each season or at least it should. That is why in nature, the types of produce available for each season are quite different from each other or 'to everything there is a season'.

Your digestion, the foods you eat and the way to eat them will also change throughout the year for a healthy gut - all because of the way nature is reflected in us. Eating in season then, is along the exact same lines as choosing organic foods - it is vitally important. 

Some things just make more sense. 

Have a healthy day,

April 

Lamb, sweet corn and root vegetable stew