We are on a spring kick this month and we're building on last week's episode where we talked about the impact of the spring season on our minds and bodies to dig into seasonal eating. and specifically how we can take advantage of the offerings of this season and align with eating for spring to attain optimal health and wellbeing.
In this episode, we explore the nutrition of the season - from leafy greens to berries to cruciferous veggies. Learn how these foods can nourish not only our bodies but also our minds,body, mood, and spirits.
Dr. Adrienne Youdim, a triple board-certified internist, obesity medicine, and physician nutrition specialist, shares insights on how the arrival of spring can impact health and well-being.
Discover how seasonal eating can positively impact our health, the planet, and our connection to the natural world. Let's embrace the abundance of spring and savor the flavors that support vitality and resilience.
Let's make seasonal eating healthy, fun, and exciting.
What You’ll Learn From this Episode
- Understand the importance of aligning diet with the rhythm of nature
- Explore the nutritional value of leafy greens, berries, and cruciferous vegetables
- Learn how seasonal eating can support overall health and sustainability
“Think fresh and think nutrient dense.” - Dr. Adrienne Youdim
Recommended Episode for our 2024 Spring Series:
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Hello and welcome back friends.
As I mentioned, we are on a spring kick this month and we're building on last week's episode where we talked about the impact of the spring season on our minds and bodies to dig into seasonal eating. and specifically how we can take advantage of the offerings of this season and align with eating for spring to attain optimal health and wellbeing.
I'm your host, Dr. Adrienne Youdim. I'm a triple board certified internist, obesity medicine and physician nutrition specialist. And I just love sharing the science of living well. My goal is to help you redefine nutrition, to include not only the food that you eat, but all the ways in which we can nourish ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. So as I mentioned, we are spring-themed this month, and I just love all of the themes of new beginnings, rebirth, growth, and all the mindset shifts that we can take as inspiration of the spring season. Again, last week, we talked about the impact of spring on our minds and bodies, and I shared some thoughts and strategies on how we can live in alignment with the spring season by incorporating these very themes of new beginnings and fresh starts. And in short, how we can spring clean our lives.
And on today's episode, we're going to dive into the potential of seasonal eating and how we can really take advantage of the food that the season offers to positively impact our health. Seasonal eating offers a pathway to nourish not only our bodies, but as we'll discuss on today's episodes, also our minds and our spirits. And really the spring season offers us so many opportunities to do so.
So let's get into the topic of springtime nutrition and talk about how we can eat in harmony with the season. Some of the tips and themes that we'll address today will include the nutrition of the season. So we'll talk about all the nutrients that we get out of leafy greens, berries, cruciferous vegetables, and other fruits and veggies that are kind of aligned with the season.
We'll talk about the importance of seasonal eating to our overall health and to the sustainability of our planet. And I'll share some personal tips for including springtime food into your diet. So seasonal eating is a practice of consuming foods that are naturally available to us right now during this particular time of year, and really aligning our diet with the rhythm of nature. In spring, the earth kind of awakens from its winter sleep.
And in doing so, it offers this huge array of fruits, vegetables, and herbs that give us a whole symphony of flavors and tastes and nutrients. And really when we embrace seasonal eating, we not only have an opportunity to support our health, but we have an opportunity to support the people and the planet around us. We can take advantage of local agriculture. We can reduce our carbon footprint and environmental footprint in doing so. And at the same time, reap the nutritional benefits of what is fresh and available to us, unprocessed and in season. I really can't think of any better way to align our personal, collective and global values. That's really how we win, is when we do what's right for us, what's right for the world and right for the people around us. In terms of doing the right thing for us, spring foods are really nutrient rich. And some that stand out to me are one, the leafy greens. So things like spinach, kale, arugula. These veggies are packed with vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K. These nutrients are important to vision, immunity, blood and clotting, as well as folate and iron. which support blood production or the production of healthy blood cells, as well as B vitamins, which are so important to mood regulation and mental health and wellbeing. This springtime season also makes me think of berries. So strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries. Berries are amazing because they are filled with fiber and they are filled with antioxidants, each color giving us a different nutrient, a different phytochemical or antioxidant that has a different function in our body.
These vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants give us protection against oxidative stress in the body, inflammation, and chronic disease. Specifically, the antioxidants that are found in berries have been shown to help support our cardiovascular system, our brains, and help protect against certain cancers. Remember that reactive oxidants or oxidative stress can be a pathway towards the rampant growth of cells and unchecked growth of cells is essentially the first step in cancer or cancer growth. And so when we think about things like colon cancer, just a couple episodes ago, I talked about how there was a rise of colon cancer in young people.
This is really important. Seasonal eating and incorporating these berries are really important because fiber and these antioxidants specifically can really protect against cancer and can protect against colon cancer and promote digestive health. Then we have our cruciferous vegetables. These are things like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, cabbage. They are also high in fiber and super rich in phytonutrients as well as vitamin C and K. These phytonutrients and nutrients like fiber are particularly beneficial to hormonal balance and to our digestive health. Keep in mind that cruciferous vegetables are gas producing. So if you feel digestive upset from eating these foods, I recommend that you soak and or steam to help your body process and digest these foods a little bit better. I also want to point out that if you freeze vegetables while they're at their peak, you actually maintain their nutritional value.
So that goes for your steamed cruciferous vegetables. Don't overcook them because you'll nuke the nutrients out of them. But lightly steaming and then freezing is a great way to preserve the nutrients And of course, berries, which I love in my smoothies, can also be frozen and you're not losing any of the nutritional value. In fact, you are maintaining the nutritional value when you freeze fruits and vegetables. So keep that in mind. Eating seasonally not only nourishes our bodies, however, but it also fosters this connection to the natural world. Like I mentioned, seasonal eating can impact positively our minds, our bodies, and our connection to the people and to the world around us. One of the particular benefits of spring eating and eating seasonally, again, is that foods are harvested at their peak ripeness and they are provided at their peak nutritional value as well as at their peak flavor value. So by consuming fresh locally grown produce, we really are ensuring that we have the optimal intake of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants that are essential for our health and for disease prevention. Think fresh and think nutrient dense.
And remember that if you do freeze them, you are actually maintaining that freshness. The second benefit is environmental sustainability. So choosing seasonal foods reduces the need for long distance transportation, which impacts greenhouse gases and gas emissions, of course. It's also associated with proper food production and distribution. In doing this, we're also supporting our local farmers and supporting sustainable agriculture and really helping in our ecological stewardship, really, by preserving the diversity and the sustainability of our fruits and vegetables. Seasonal eating also lends itself to mindful eating because it encourages mindfulness and appreciation for the natural cycles of life. the natural availability of certain foods, fruits, and vegetables. And when we take advantage of that, when we really savor the tastes of the season, we can cultivate a greater presence, gratitude for, and sense of connection to the food that we eat and to the earth that provides it.
And then of course, seasonal eating can also help lift our spirits. We talked a little bit about mood last podcast and seasonal affective disorder, which is a form of depression that is associated with reduced sunlight. It is primarily comes about during the winter seasons when there's less sunlight when days are shorter, and we can incorporate these healthful nutrients from these seasonal foods to align with longer days, more sunlight, and provide yet another way to improve and impact our mood. Remember that some of these mood boosting vitamins and minerals are found in the fruits and veggies that we discussed.
So, Let's talk about how we can do this. Let's offer some tips on how to engage in seasonal eating best. So number one, and I already kind of suggested this, head over to your local farmers markets or consider joining a CSA or Community Supported Agriculture Program. These are ways in which you can take advantage of fresh seasonal produce that's grown in your area or in your region. And really heading over to the Sunday Farmers Market, and I know that they're offered at all times of the week, but I love to go to the Sunday Farmers Market with my family. It's a time to be outdoors It's a time to be together. It's a time to help engage my children in healthy eating and let them make choices about what they wish to consume. So it really is kind of a feel good moment that also cultivates this respect and appreciation for how we fuel and nourish ourselves, not only for yourself, but for your family and for your children. Along those lines, get creative in the kitchen. Experiment. with seasonal ingredients that you may have picked up at the farmer's market, or perhaps something that your child picked up that you wouldn't have otherwise thought to purchase. Engage them in recipe seeking, there's so many resources now online, and try to take advantage of more fresh foods.
So incorporating in a daily salad, maybe even a salad every meal, maybe taking advantage of your berries in smoothies and even light springtime refreshing soups. So push out of your comfort zone, push out of some of your regular routines and norms and use the spring season and some of these new flavors and produce as a way to bring an element of surprise, excitement and fun into what may have become a dull drum eating routine. Again, remember that you can preserve the harvest, so you can extend the enjoyment of springtime flavors by freezing, as I mentioned, but you can also pickle, you can also can. These are all ways to preserve, and you do preserve the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients of the season so that you can enjoy these flavors year round.
Finally, don't forget your herbs. Incorporating fresh herbs like mint, basil, cilantro, dill. This is a great way to add flavor and nutritional benefits to your meals. And it's a way to limit harmful additives like excessive fat or excessive salt that again is not helpful or does not serve your physical health and wellbeing. I love fresh mint tea. I love mixing various herbs, whatever I find, and chopping them into my salad. I also love adding dill to tuna. So those are some of my three favorites. See if you can try them and let me know what you think. And speaking of tea, herbal teas and infusions are another great way to add nutrients to your diet. Teas also support digestion. They help relaxation because they're so soothing.
And herbal teas are a swap that I often offer to my patients if they're consuming too much coffee or too many caloric beverages, or even as a way to occupy their minds and their mouths at the end of the day when we tend to sit on the couch and watch TV and perhaps snack mindlessly. So as we welcome the spring season, I want you to remember that you can use your food choices in a way that aligns with the season and as a way to really be in harmony with the natural rotation of the earth.
I encourage you to take advantage of the abundance of spring and all the seasonal foods and fruits and vegetables and herbs that can really support our health, mind and body. And by embracing these principles of seasonal eating and savoring these flavors, we can really cultivate vitality, resilience and harmony with ourselves in the natural world. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and consider heading over to the app where you listened and leave us a review. I look forward to seeing you again next week for another installment of our seasonal series. And until then, I wish you a happy, healthy, vibrant, and energy-filled week.
See you next time on Health Bite