Eating seasonal vegetables is a great way to improve your health, and the health of your family. Locally produced seasonal fruit and vegetables are often higher in beneficial ingredients; vitamins, minerals and cancer-busting and anti-ageing ingredients. I want to challenge your taste buds with 3 seasonal vegetables that you will find in the farmers market;
?Broad Beans (fava beans); last year I accompanied a school trip to a local farm to teach the children about how food is produced. The high-point for me was watching fifty children under the age of ten munching their way through fat new pods of broad beans; they couldn?t get enough of them. You may have negative feelings from childhood about these less-than-beautiful legumes, but put those feeling to one side. Fresh new-season broad beans gently steamed are unbeatable, and very fresh new beans are delicious raw. They can be added to salads, stews, or served drizzled with olive oil and black pepper as a side-dish. Broad beans are rich in fiber, protein, vitamins C, B vitamins, zinc and copper. They also contain mood-boosting chemicals, yippee!
?New season beetroot is just delicious; no stop pulling a face, it really is. But wait! Don?t boil the poor thing to death, steam it for 40 minutes or until you can slide a knife into it, then rub the skin off and chop into cubes. Serve on a bed of rocket or new-season lettuce, with some goats? cheese, and dress with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and chopped walnuts. Beetroot are also great roasted with olive oil and thyme for a sweet and filling addition to any meal or barbeque. Beetroot is crammed with powerful antioxidants (cancer fighters) and is thought support liver function, and cleanse the intestines. It is crammed with vitamin C, Calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, and folic acid; that is food with attitude.
?The strawberry season has started which means that British summertime has truly arrived. Can you remember when you only ate strawberries in June and July? The chances are that you have become so used to the bland, dry, odorless supermarket strawberries that taste of nothing and are white in the middle, that you have forgotten that strawberries should be sweet and flavoursome, pink all the way through, and that the juice should run down your chin when you bite into them. They are so delicious that they really do not need any cream or sugar. A handful of strawberries will give you more than your entire day?s requirement of vitamin C, only 45 calories, plenty of fiber and folic acid as well as other anti-ageing and cancer-fighting ingredients.
I hope that this has given you some ideas for some healthy seasonal food. Indulge and enjoy!
Vikki Scovell is a consultant in Nutrition and Healthy Living, she also teaches fitness classes, Yoga, and works to promote healthy food choices with children. To find out more, read articles, or sign up to her FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER please visit http://www.getfitter.net
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