Seasonal Fruits & Vegetables

Last week I talked about the kind of additives put into frozen convenience food and fresh is always better than frozen and that seasonal fruits and vegetables are better still. So what is fresh? Can’t you just walk over to the produce section of your local supermarket and grab a few tomatoes and oranges, they’re fresh right? Of course they are but some may be fresher than others. We live in Southern California and through improvements in trade, it’s possible that nearly any type of produce can be purchased all year long. There's no question some foods taste better and have better vitamin quality during local harvest season. I believe that's why people crave in-season fruits and veggies during certain times of the year. With the start of Summer in just a few days, it's good to know which fruits and vegetables are in season for this area so we can buy the freshest, tastiest and

healthiest produce we can. Not to mention buying local is good for the environment, a smaller carbon footprint if you will. Here is a list of seasonal Summer fruits for Southern California. (Local spring vegetables are usually still in good supply)

Apricots            Cherries          Grapes             Plums             Yellow Squash

Blackberries      Corn               Green beans     Peppers

Blueberries        Cucumber       Melons             Raspberries

Cantaloupe        Eggplant         Nectarines        Tomatoes

Carrots              Fresh herbs    Okra                 Tropical fruits

Celery               Garlic              Peaches           Watermelon

For a more extensive, list check out the website below:

http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/?page_id=996

If you don't live in So Cal it’s easy to find a list of seasonal fruits for your area on the web.  Google “Seasonal Local Produce”.

Another reason buying local and seasonal fruits and vegetables is this, some fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes and melons when out of season are picked green or slightly ripe and shipped from Mexico or Chile and other places. Picking green or unripe produce doesn't give fruits or vegetables time to extract its optimal amount of vitamins and flavor from the soil and the sun and it may take days or even weeks before those items reach the supermarkets. That's why melons and tomatoes in the Winter have little or no taste. Some produce is even gassed in sealed rooms with Ethylene gas to ripen. Even though Ethylene gas is a naturally occurring gas from some fruits and vegetables, forcing it to ripen in this way still does not impair the lost vitamins and flavor. That's why putting unripe produce such as avocados in a brown paper bag will help then to ripen. The Ethylene gas given off by the avocado is trapped in the bag and ripens the avocado.

One last thing, buying in season saves you $$$$.

Happy Shoppn’ and  Good Cookn’

Chef Ken