Consuming local and seasonal foods helps lower energy usage when transporting them and provides you with access to foods not available year-round.
Fruit and vegetables that have been harvested close to where they’ve grown tend to taste much sweeter, as their flavors have had ample time to develop on the vine or tree before being picked and taken into stores for sale.
Freshness
Seasonal eating has become an increasingly popular buzz phrase: chefs use it, farmers promote it, and dietitians recommend it. Seasonal eating posits that locally and seasonally harvested foods offer more vibrant flavors and nutritional benefits.
Eating local and seasonal food can give your body the nutrients it needs for proper functioning while contributing to your community’s economy. Here’s how you can contribute:
Studies have consistently demonstrated that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for foods made with locally sourced ingredients, either because of the perception that these are fresher and have greater flavor or as part of a way of supporting local economies.
Seasonal produce tends to be less expensive because it is harvested at harvest time and transported shorter distances; this reduces its environmental impact and may yield better-quality produce.
Foods at their peak of ripeness and sweetness offer more complex and richer flavors, making them more enjoyable to consume and making mealtimes more exciting overall. This can make eating experiences more pleasurable overall.
Seasonal fruits and vegetables offer more than a variety of tastes and textures; they’re also rich in antioxidants and other essential nutrients that contribute to a balanced diet. Therefore, it is vital that we include seasonal produce as frequently as possible during their growing seasons, supplementing our meals when not available locally.
Eating seasonal foods can help bring back the natural rhythm of the seasons and traditional eating patterns, leading to a more sustainable lifestyle. Locally grown fruits and vegetables not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions from long-distance transportation, but they also benefit local communities.
An effective way to eat seasonal food is by shopping at your neighborhood farmer’s market or joining a community-supported agriculture program. If you can’t shop at your neighborhood farmer’s market or join a community-supported agriculture program, you can still achieve seasonality by using frozen or canned produce without added sugars or preservatives, and cooking these ingredients with herbs, spices, and other flavors for maximum flavor enhancement.
Nutrients
Eating seasonally is an effective way to get more nutrients out of your food. Seasonal produce available locally tends to be packed with nutrition since they were harvested recently and haven’t had to travel far for collection, plus it may taste more appealing than imported crops that travel thousands of miles before making it onto your table!
Small farms or family farmers typically produce local food, focusing on quality produce using less-intensive techniques and selling directly to consumers instead of large retailers.
These practices are much better for the environment than larger-scale commercial agriculture, which often leads to excessive water and land usage, soil degradation, pollution, and waste production. Furthermore, when you buy local foods, you’re supporting local economies and helping small-scale farmers stay in business.
Eating seasonal foods provides another advantage of choosing seasonal produce: you can explore new fruits and vegetables not typically seen at your grocery store or farmer’s market, helping increase variety in your diet for overall excellent health. Eating the same few fruits and vegetables year-round can easily lead to a rut; seasonal eating broadens your palate’s horizons by discovering the full range of flavors and nutrients available for your meals!
One of the primary advantages of eating local and seasonal food is that it reduces energy costs when transporting it. Long-distance produce is typically transported in refrigerated trucks, which use a lot of energy; choosing seasonal products reduces the amount of fossil fuel these trucks use and the emissions they emit.
However, it’s important to note that many of the articles in this systematic review used different definitions of local and seasonal food, and not all of them focused on sustainability issues. For example, while pumpkins may be considered seasonal in the US, Mexico imports them due to high demand.
Flavor
Diet diversity is crucial to optimal health, and eating seasonally increases your options. By selecting local, in-season fruits and vegetables, you can benefit from their natural flavors and nutrients that are best for you while supporting local farmers who invest in creating healthier communities through cultivating a wide variety of produce.
As the best way to discover what is in season in your area, visiting farmers’ markets or community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms is the easiest way. Many grocery stores also carry locally produced goods; check their websites or ask at the store for details. For guidance, you could also consult seasonal food guides, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture Seasonal Produce Guide or The Farmer’s Almanac.
By choosing seasonal produce, you can help decrease greenhouse emissions while supporting local farmers.
Foods allowed to ripen naturally tend to produce full flavor profiles; when consumed out-of-season, they are usually treated in some way to prevent spoilage or hasten the process, and this often reduces their aroma profile.
Eating seasonal food allows you to experience the full spectrum of flavors and nutrition, creating exciting mealtimes. Incorporating new fruits and vegetables can add variety to your diet for overall better health.
In addition to helping reduce your environmental footprint, eating seasonally can save you money. Transport and storage fees often push up the prices of out-of-season foods; you can avoid this expense by shopping locally instead.
Sustainability
Locally produced food benefits both local farmers and businesses, as well as the environment, by reducing energy usage for transporting it from faraway locations, thus cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Support local farms by purchasing seasonal goods at farmers markets or through community-supported agriculture programs in your area; it will benefit not only your health, but also your wallet!
Grocery stores pay to ship food all year round to stock their shelves, but this costs money and creates pollution. Big cargo vehicles use fuel that releases carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change. If you buy locally grown produce, the price tag will be the only environmental cost.
Food that travels from different areas to your grocery store undergoes various processes designed to prevent spoilage or slow ripening before it reaches you, which all diminish its flavor. Choosing seasonal produce instead makes the flavor fuller and more intense.
Produce requires significant energy to grow and harvest, and it travels thousands of miles across the globe to reach you. Unfortunately, as much as 40 percent of food produced is wasted due to it not being eaten, while saving this waste not only saves money but also makes an incredible difference to greenhouse gases generated, water waste, and wasted land resources.
Buying from local producers, farmer’s markets, or joining a CSA gives you the opportunity to form relationships with those responsible for growing and raising your food, as well as learn about their methods of production and their impact on the surrounding environment. Buying locally offers a personalized approach to decision-making, potentially reducing the use of unnecessary additives like antibiotics in mass-produced food products.
Studies examining the benefits of eating local and seasonal food often focus on only one aspect of sustainability, such as analyzing consumer preferences or investigating its economic ramifications; however, such studies should encompass a comprehensive view of sustainability’s multidimensional concept by including other relevant factors important to people.
Composting is the process of turning organic waste into a nutrient-rich soil conditioner. It reduces landfilling, which produces methane gas, which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
Home composting with this simple and cost-effective approach allows you to safely dispose of kitchen scraps and grass clippings in your garden, where they will decompose quickly over time. A healthy compost pile has an equal balance between green (nitrogen-rich) and brown (carbon-rich) materials for maximum benefit.
How to compost
Composting food scraps is an easy way to reduce waste, combat climate change, and enhance garden soil. Composting is the natural process of decomposition that transforms organic materials like leaves, grass clippings, and kitchen scraps into a nutrient-rich soil amendment. You don’t even need a backyard to start composting! And no matter whether you live in an apartment complex or a suburban home, composting can easily fit into everyday life!
The first step to creating compost piles is collecting materials. The USDA actively encourages people to create their own compost piles, but most Americans send food scraps and yard trimmings straight to landfills, accounting for 20 to 30% of American garbage annually. By doing this, they can produce free soil amendments while decreasing the amount of chemical fertilizer their plants require.
Start by creating a 3-foot-square pile in your yard or another accessible, sunny, and non-flooded location. Combine green materials such as grass clippings and food scraps with brown materials such as shredded paper, dried leaves, hay, or cardboard. Finally, add moisture from sources such as your hosepipe, rainwater, or snowfall; this helps prevent your pile from turning into an unruly, soggy heap and speeds up the decomposition process.
For optimal operation, your compost pile requires an approximately 25:1 ratio of “green” materials to brown materials. However, don’t overthink this ratio: any organic matter, such as paper towels and napkins, will eventually break down under suitable conditions.
You can compost almost anything to reduce waste, not just meats and dairy products. Avoid cooked, oily, or fat-laden items, which may attract unwanted pests or cause unpleasant odors. Also, keep any pet droppings, animal manure, or bones out, as these won’t benefit compost. Also, take note of any chemicals on plant materials, as these could potentially kill off microorganisms that aid composting processes.
Materials
Composting transforms organic waste like banana peels and coffee grounds into a soil additive that supports plant growth. Composting also keeps waste out of landfills, reduces methane pollution (a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide), and improves soil health through adding organic matter and nutrients.
Composting is an environmentally friendly and straightforward way of diverting food scraps from landfills. But before beginning the process, you must understand which materials are necessary for composting to work successfully.
Microorganisms need the ideal blend of nitrogenous (green) and carbonaceous (brown) materials to produce nutritious compost, such as kitchen scraps and yard waste, and create nutrient-rich compost piles. Green materials, commonly called “greens,” typically include kitchen waste or yard debris. In contrast, carbonaceous material includes dry leaves, twigs, and wood chips, and to create an active compost heap, the ratio should be 3:1 green to brown materials.
Start by designating a dry location outdoors for your compost bin or pile and building or buying a container large enough to store organic scraps. Add layers of brown material, such as wood chips, twigs, and dry leaves, to the bin to keep things warm and airy inside—this layer helps ensure optimal conditions in which to work your magic!
Next, layer in your “greens.” It is best to gather composting materials over several days so that they can decompose more rapidly in your pile. Additionally, you can cut up or shred more oversized items like newspapers or cardboard to expedite the decomposition process.
After combining all the greens and browns, moisten them with water and allow them to decompose. Over time, microorganisms will do their work and turn your organic material into rich soil amendments that you can use to nourish your garden. Organic fertilizers benefit soil health and can increase crop yields while decreasing the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, water, or greenhouse gas production.
Setting up a compost pile
Although NRDC recommends consumers minimize food waste, some scraps will inevitably remain. Instead of throwing these scraps away, consider starting a compost pile. Composting is a natural process that turns organic materials like grass clippings, leaves, coffee grounds, and food scraps into nutrient-rich fertilizer by breaking them down with bacteria, fungi, and single-celled organisms (protozoa). Microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, and protozoa break down material before decomposing further to produce fiber-rich carbon-containing humus that provides inorganic nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
At first, gather enough organic material for at least one cubic yard pile. If necessary, chop or shred any coarse materials to reduce their size; this will allow the microorganisms involved in decomposition to digest them quickly. After collecting enough organic matter, layer carbon and nitrogen materials in appropriate proportions and combine thoroughly using a pitchfork before gradually adding water until the combined materials resemble a damp sponge (50–60 percent moisture content).
An ideal spot for your compost pile should be located downwind from your house to avoid unpleasant odors and help dry out wet materials more efficiently. Furthermore, raindrops could saturate it too heavily and cause it to rot prematurely.
Choose the hot method of composting. Your pile must be at least three cubic feet and enclosed by a cover to allow heat-loving organisms such as thermophilic bacteria to take over decomposition. A thick material such as earth or hay may work best as a cover; other options include plastic sheets or tarps.
As your compost heap heats up, it will turn black and smelly. If decomposition appears to be slowing, it could be because there is too much carbon for every gram of nitrogen (brown). You can increase the C:N ratio by adding manure or grass clippings, or if your pile seems inactive and dry, simply increase brown materials such as wood chips, sawdust, straw, or cardboard.
Maintaining a compost pile
By adding compost to your soil, microorganisms can thrive and perform essential functions for soil health—including helping retain moisture and nutrients, resist erosion, and reduce runoff of pollutants during floods or droughts. Composting is also an environmentally responsible and cost-efficient way to manage household waste while enriching your garden.
To create compost, you’ll need a combination of nitrogen materials (food scraps and grass clippings) and carbon (dry leaves and twigs). This mixture is known as the “golden rule.” A suitable ratio would be two parts browns to one part greens.
Carbon-rich materials tend to be easier to source than nitrogen-rich ones. Look at cabinet shops or your neighbors for sawdust and shredded cardboard; inquire whether any have dried leaves to give; search online classified ads for wood chips, hay straw, or vegetable peelings as possible sources.
When you add trim and chopped pieces to your pile, nitrogen-rich materials work best. Remember that compost takes approximately one year to prepare, so make sure it is manageable between additions.
If your pile is too dry, it may emit an offensive odor. To fix this problem, add more carbon materials. Conversely, too much moisture in a pile could render it inhospitable to the microorganisms responsible for breaking down organic material and making compost.
Ensuring the pile gets hot enough and breaks down materials faster will accelerate decomposition and compost production.
Once your pile has finished, it should look dark, loose, and crumbly with an earthy aroma. It should also be full of worms and other decomposers, such as vermin. Before using your finished compost in your garden, however, be sure to screen or sift through it first, as certain items, such as twigs or eggshells, may remain undigested and could harm plants.
You can use screened or sifted compost to improve soil conditions, fill flower beds, or add top dressing to vegetable and herb gardens.
