Helpful sites to encourage eating seasonal, local foods

Written by Charlie Peverett on 04 January 2012

There’s been a lot in the news lately about the distance food has to travel before it gets to us, with a recent British Market Research Bureau survey showing that 59% of us are now aware of the “food miles” concept. So, it’s good to know that we are in the midst of British Food Fortnight (BFF), which focuses on the benefits of local produce.

Eating fresh local produce means buying according to the British seasons, of course. Some supermarkets have a dedicated section for local or British produce, but if yours doesn’t you can check out BigBarn for local producers.

Obviously, if you’re already growing your own on a self-sustainable-eco-allotment, you’ll know about the food seasons. But the rest of us are going to have to relearn habits that went out of the window when we discovered the joys of year-round bananas. We’ve found some helpful websites to make the task a bit easier…

First up is this page from the Woodcraft Folk. There aren’t many bells & whistles to be found, but what it does give us is a nice and simple (and highly printable) list of what’s in season when.

We also really like the Waitrose list of what’s in season but we’re not sure that the website is being kept up-to-date: the months only run from May to October and the flavour of the month section seems to be pining for July. We think the key to running a website for eating with the seasons is to keep up with them as they change, so we hope the site is updated soon. Still, there is a nice podcast about seasonality.

The most in depth resource, however, has to be the BBC In season site. It provides information on the food seasons, but you can also click your way through to recipes that use seasonal ingredients – really useful if you’re struggling to come up with ideas for dinner.

We’re converted, and feeling peckish already.

IMAGES - by Flickr user Rob Qld & Hamed Saber

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