Early Retirement Extreme Forums » Lifestyle Questions

Eating in season

(3 posts)
  1. secretwealth

    Expert
    Joined: Jun '11
    Posts: 1,511

    I've never lived close to farms and I'm not much of a nature person, so I don't really know when certain fruits and vegetables are in season. I'm trying to learn, and this site has been a great help:

    http://www.simplesteps.org/eat-local/state/new-york

    Now I've made a shopping list in my calendar listing the fruits and vegetables that are in season at that particular time. Hopefully I can stick to this shopping list.

    Any other tips on eating seasonally? Also, are farmer's markets really cheaper than fruit/vegetable wholesalers, generally?

    Posted 1 year ago #
  2. cls

    Novice
    Joined: Dec '11
    Posts: 8

    I found a copy of this http://www.amazon.com/In-Season-Cooking-Vegetables-Fruits/dp/0789318113/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332442038&sr=1-1 on the sidewalk last year when I was first thinking about buying local, seasonal produce.

    I eat mainly vegetables and try eat local as much as possible. I'd never really given thought to it, but things are available all year round in the supermarket now. It wasn't like that when I was growing up (or maybe just not where I grew up), and food just doesn't taste the same. Now I try to pay attention to what's in season locally. There's a big difference in taste.

    We try to go to the farmers market regularly, even if we don't buy, we walk around to see what's available as it helps us to learn what's in season for mealplanning and supermarket trips. I find the farmers markets pricy. I go to the one in Carroll Gdns and the one on Atlantic Avenue. There are a couple of vegetable only stores around here, but their produce always looks fake. It is cheaper though. Are those what you mean by "wholesale".

    Supermarkets are sneaky though. Union Market has "locally grown" signs on some of their produce, like spinach, but if you look it's actually grown in Florida over the winter and more locally in the summer.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  3. KevinW

    Master
    Joined: Aug '10
    Posts: 577

    "Produce on sale correlates" with "produce in season." Not perfectly, of course, but decently well. If you stick to produce on sale, you're probably buying in season most of the time.

    Also, as stated, if you buy locally and it really is local, you're buying in season. We get almost all our produce from a CSA, ergo all of that is in season. Likewise if you grow it yourself, it's in season (duh).

    Posted 1 year ago #

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