COOKING WITH FRESH FOODS
Nature is beautiful and as such it has a whole lot of benefits when our foods grow naturally without the use of fertilizers, sweeteners, preservatives, and other chemical additions to either enhance its taste, growth or appearance.
Eating fresh foods like fruits and vegetables has a lot of health benefits in the body. Most times these fresh produce are even far cheaper, more flavorful compared to foods and fruits that are not grown naturally. Patronizing farmers who sell fresh foods is a way of encouraging these farmers to do more and produce more fresh foods so that they can be readily available for people per time.
All foods and fruits have their seasons, for example around Christmas is when we usually have squash and pumpkins, while in August we do have tomatoes. To have a firsthand taste of fresh foods has a whole lot of advantages from the unique taste to its nutritional benefits.
For example, you can’t compare buying organic apples from fruit growers or small farms to buying same apples from the supermarket, there will certainly be a noticeable difference in the taste because the ones bought from the farmers will taste much better as it is still fresh and does not contain preservatives which the ones from the supermarket may have.
A way to enjoy firsthand taste of foods and fruits is probably to start your own garden no matter how small, growing the foods yourself is cheaper, healthier, and more nutritious as it is direct from the source. This will also make you have a unique connection with the foods as you eat with joy knowing fully well that the food is fresh and directly from the source. It will also make you appreciate farmers more having had a feeling of what they go through on daily basis.
As a matter of fact foods are seasonal and as such there are foods that are more readily availble in spring than they are available in the summer, fall, or winter. A brief of the seasons in which some of these foods and fruits are available is as follows;
- Summer: it is the best time for stone fruits (apricots, nectarines, and peaches), raspberries, blueberries, cherries, squash, beets, string beans, cucumbers, blackberries, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, okra, melons, eggplant, and corn among others.
- Fall: this is the season meant for pears, apples, broccoli, kale, mustard greens, and cauliflower among others.
- Winter: this is the season for vegetables which includes winter squash, parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, turnips, and rutabagas.
- Spring: this is a time for vegetables such as radishes, asparagus, delicate leafy greens like argula and Mache, fiddle heads, ramps, strawberries mushrooms, and peas.
Benefits of Fresh Foods
The benefits of eating fresh vegetables and fruits by far outweighs eating them in any other form such as when they are already processed and preserved as juice or canned. The following are a few benefits that fresh foods offer the body which has way of making human beings happy living life in joy and in a state of well-being;
- Fresh foods give at least 10 – 20 times more fiber in your diet
- By eating fresh foods, you will be consuming a lot less salt and sugar
- Fresh foods does not spike blood sugar level compared to when you consume these foods as vegetable or fruit juice.
- You consume less sodium by eating fresh foods
- You will get full faster when you eat fresh foods and your crave for junks drastically reduces thus reducing the chances of you becoming obese
- You get more energy from fresh foods
- All nutrients in fresh foods are available in their natural form which is a lot healthier.