Seasonal Eating

Everette and I recently finished reading Paul Nison's The Daylight Diet (highly recommended!) in which he says Hippocrates "often mentioned seasonal eating:  Winter foods are heavier and sustain us longer when the days are shorter.  In the warmer months, the food is naturally more cooling to the body and much lighter on the system.  Summer produce has much more liquid than dense, winter produce. "

Food for thought.

If we follow the Daylight Diet, which means only eating during daylight, and always going to sleep at night with a completely empty stomach, eating seasonal would perfectly fit.

For example, here in Canada, it gets dark during winter months at, say, 4 pm.  So eating should be done before 4pm.  If I usually go to bed at 10pm, that's 6 hours I haven't eaten before hitting the sack.  If I've eaten root vegetables (winter foods) it will have taken a bit more time to digest these heavier foods, and they will have sustained me longer in those 6 hours.

During the summer when sunset might not be until about 9 pm, it would be recommended to be eating lighter fruits and veggies which are in season.  If I still go to bed by 10 pm, I shouldn't be eating just before sunset, but it also should be at least 4 hours before I hit the sack.  So I shouldn't be eating any later than 6 pm.

Interesting, that during the hot days, when we are in tune with our bodies, we like to eat lighter meals where the food has high water content which helps hydrate us and cools us down.

I have a problem eating 'in season'.  Much of the foods we like to eat aren't local in this colder climate.(not much different when we are back in BC)  They are what used to be considered 'exotic' but now they are almost staples.  For example, here in Cape Breton people don't grow kiwi, oranges, bananas, pineapple, mangoes, etc.  But they are pretty staple produce here.  They are all very juicy fruits (except the bananas), all grown in hotter climates, all with longer heat seasons than here.  Maybe that would explain why we are cold the majority of the time living here?  Maybe we aren't eating enough heavy produce?  But, I don't know many ways to prepare heavy winter veggies without cooking them.

One reason I was keen on learning to ferment veggies was because they seemed naturally to lean towards the winter veggies like carrots, turnips, cabbage, etc.

We've tried some raw squash recipes, and none of them have been hits with us (yet) except for zucchini 'sghetti.  Oh, Everette does make an awesome 'Massaged Kale Salad' with avocado and lemon which is incredible, but the children don't like it.  I didn't eat much for veggies at their age, so I'm not surprised.  Kale is kind of thick and requires quite a bit of chewing.  But, oh I love it now!  And it's great in juices and green smoothies.

We also use quite a bit of nuts and seeds, which I would consider are 'winter' foods. 

So, if any of you have great suggestions, I'd love to get some help.  I know in alot of places winter is over.  Not so confident about that here, yet ;)   I'm looking forward to summer, because we have no problems with all those summer fruits and veggies.