Discover the top 3 health benefits of eating locally grown seasonal produce
The majority of our food today comes from commercial scale farms and large supermarkets. Amazingly, we now have easy access to a vast array of fruits and vegetables from all over the world, throughout the year.
No doubt, getting your daily dose of fibre is essential, but with initiatives such as The Backyard Pantry, it is now easier to access seasonally grown foods.
Local seasonal food is exactly what it sounds like. Food grown locally and in season.
Consuming seasonally grown foods can have a positive impact on your health and wellbeing. In this blog article, we explore the top three health benefits of eating locally grown seasonal food.
1. Thriving Microbiome: Improves Your Gut Health
You may be familiar with the importance of having good gut health, and what it means for your immunity and your general well-being. Including seasonal produce in your diet can help improve your gut health and even allow it to thrive.
Gut microbes are tiny organisms that live within your gut (also your skin and mouth!) With more than 100 trillion of them, they work hard to keep foreign bacterias at bay and regulate our digestion, brain function, absorption of nutrients and general health.
Seasonal produce, especially when locally grown, are nurtured by the perfect seasonal conditions and bio-activated soils in which they grow. Nutrient dense fruit and veggies fuel our personal microbiome, and with that creates a plethora of further health benefits.
2. Strengthen Your Immunity
Consuming fruits and vegetables that align with their natural seasons ensures that you relish them at the peak of their quality, nutrition, and flavour.
Interestingly, this synchronicity also corresponds with the periods when our bodies require these nutrients the most.
Take oranges for instance, they flourish within the winter months, coinciding with the cold and flu season. It’s the perfect time to boost your immunity defence systems. Laden with a significant dose of vitamin C, these fruits play a role in supporting robust immune function.
Being in sync with the seasons causes us to eat based on what our bodies need at the time allowing our gut and in turn, immunity, to be at its best.
3. Food for Your Brain
Your diet can have a major impact on your mental health. Eating a nutrient dense diet can help fuel your brain and may help to build a more resilient mind. Research has proven that major changes to your diet can have a significant impact on the hippocampus (which plays an important role in establishing good mental health) and eating seasonally can help facilitate this.
While everyone experiences ups and downs throughout the year, it’s been shown that symptoms from mental illness can spike based on the seasons. Part of this can be linked back to the nutrients your body receives in Winter versus in the Summer months (more vitamin D and omega 3 fatty acids in Summer).
Eating with the Seasons is Good for You
When consuming fruits and vegetables that are grown seasonally, you can align your diet to the external environment.. The innate rhythm of the sun’s cycle and the growth patterns of plants can synchronise seamlessly with the requirements of our bodies. Seasonal foods in the winter such as citrus fruits, pumpkins, and dark leafy vegetables can help you stay energised and provide the boost needed to get you through the darker months.
There you have it! Three key health benefits to eating with the seasons . We recognise that it can be quite the task finding local and seasonally grown produce, but The Backyard Pantry made it easy for you. It’s a local and sustainable food network that connects you directly with your local farmers and producers. You can meet the local producers here.
Original article published by The Backyard Pantry and shared with their permission.