Welcome to our website!
Until some time in the 1980s, shelling peas and washing clods of mud from carrots was familiar to anyone who cooked. In the last twenty years, the way we buy food has changed immensely. For those who live in areas removed from agriculture, this change has been the greatest. It is now usual to see strawberries in supermarkets throughout the winter, and to buy root vegetables washed and sealed in plastic with no hint that they have been near earth.
Notwithstanding the supposed age of convenience, there are some advantages to buying seasonal foods:
Some fruits and vegetables we like to eat are never going to be seasonal: In the UK fruits like bananas, mangoes and pineapples have to be imported. Companies like Riverford work with specific farms abroad to import fair trade produce without flying it. In certain cases they claim that this can be less damaging to the environment than forcing produce under gas in the UK, as described on their website.
However, they also give the greater portion of the market to local British producers. This model enables a sustainable balance to be struck between eating mainly seasonal, local produce and still being able to have the trappings of modern life such as banana smoothies on a rainy January day. It seems to be an example where looking after local economies then helps people globally and would question the wisdom of giving away all power of choice to large supermarkets and corporations to manage global food logistics.
Seasonality also applies to meat and is possibly even more confused than the fruit and vegetable market. Most people can name a few fruits and vegetables associated with summer but few of us remember which meat was traditionally eaten when. Beyond the false seasonality of the Christmas turkey which has actually led to extreme intensive farming practices, we can generally buy any cut of meat at any time of year.