Spring and Summer are ideal seasons to eat fresh food. Fruits and vegetables make colorful stalls at organic markets.
Go to the organic market
Sunny days are a privileged moment to skim the organic markets of your region. If you are on vacation, it is a way to discover the producers of the region and their products. Why not also discover new flavors?
The market is a place to discover new products, new recipes and meet new people. Take the opportunity to discuss with the different sellers. Most people are from the region, or from a neighboring region, and will be able to help you discover their region in another way: through its culinary traditions. They can also share their recipes, tell you different cooking modes or guide you to other producers.
Going to an organic market is an experience that touches the five senses: Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch. You enjoy the multicolored stalls. You hear new sounds. You smell new fragrances. You’re experimenting new tastes. You let your fingers slide on new textures. Take for example an organic carrot: You can enjoy its color, smell, and taste. What has not been said about a ripe organic tomato? Let yourself be carried away by this set of sensations offered by a local organic market.
Eating local and seasonal
Markets are also an opportunity to consume local and seasonal. Why buy pears from South Africa, when you can eat local apricots? If it were only for carbon footprint, it would be worth it. But it is often for a question of taste. If you take a bite of an apricot or a peach picked on the same day, you know that its aroma and taste have nothing to do with those of a fruit or vegetable that have been transported for days in a truck or a boat.
Fruits and vegetables have seasons. We have tended to forget this over the last years with globalization and the development of air transport. In the Northern Hemisphere, it has become easy to eat cherries in December and oranges in May, the first from Chile, the second from South Africa. While there is no doubt that international trade has allowed some countries to develop, returning to the fundamentals of a terroir in which we are is a sensory and temporal experience.
The website ParentHub lists the benefits of seasonal fruit and vegetable consumption. Between health, planet and purse benefits, it would be a pity to deprive ourselves of it. And it’s also a good idea to discover new flavors.
Raw or cooked?
With the hot season, why not get into the salads and enjoy the veggies. Have only, raw foods bring freshness to the plate, they also bring their lot of vitamins, minerals and trace elements that cooking often denatures.
Some time ago, Medical News Today described the benefits and risks of diets based on raw foods. If the benefits appear to be obvious: more nutrients, less fat/sugar/salt, raw foods are not free of defects, especially that of potentially transmitting viruses, bacteria, and pests that would have been eliminated at cooking. However, this most often concerns products of animal origin such as meat or milk, rarely fruits and vegetables. By washing them conscientiously, the risk of contracting a disease is reduced. Pay attention however to the water which is often the vector of infections. Water is one of the reasons why it is not advisable to consume raw food in some tropical countries. Our stomachs are not equipped to withstand the bacteria present in the local water.
On the other hand, some fruits and vegetables are better for health when they are cooked. These, for example, the case of tomatoes, Carrots, or spinach, as details this article from Ecosalon. It is true that a cauliflower gratin or a well-simmered tomato sauce is a delight for the taste buds.
Listening to your body
However, when it comes to food, you should listen to your body. We sometimes like a fruit, a vegetable or a condiment that doesn’t like us, or that we digest poorly. Sometimes it’s an unfortunate association, other times intolerance, sometimes a test that goes wrong. How many people contract this famous “tourist diarrhea” on the road, as the intestinal flora tract can be easily disturbed by spice, a cooking mode or just fatigue?
So, it’s important to listen to your body’s sensations and clues. Discovering new tastes and flavors can make your body happy. It is equally important to know how to react to a physical manifestation of discomfort.
Eating good thing helps morale. In Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ, the author teaches us that our gut is our second brain. By making it happy, that is, taking care of its microbiota, we influence our mood. A holiday must-read to know what to buy at the market, for both to have fun, to do good and discover new products.
Food is part of our lives. Let’s take advantage of this summer period to discover or rediscover how to enjoy cooking and eating, art and wonder! Enjoy your meal!
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Photo by Stéphan Valentin on Unsplash
