Eating By The Seasons

The New Year has just arrived and ProNature wishes all its patrons a very happy new year...one filled with health and harmony. Christmas and the New Year always bring forth the season to be jolly and we start the year's muse with seasons themselves.

Many of you might be aware of the word ‘Chaturmas’, roughly the period from July to October or approximately the Rainy Season in India, used in the Hindu context. Many Hindus refrain from eating Onions and Garlic in this period. They are also instructed to refrain from consuming non-vegetarian food in this period, in the more recent days of course when non-vegetarian food has found wider acceptance than the days of yore.

We quote that example to ask a question: more than it being a ritual, have you ever wondered why that specific instruction may have been given thousands of years ago by the Rishis to the laymen? What may have been the significance of avoiding those foods in that season and how has globalization affected that instruction? 

In today’s day and age when globalization has made food from all across the world available pretty much at our doorstep, it is sometimes baffling to see mangoes in the market in mid-December and corn being available all year round. And that goes for many fruits and vegetables that are being cultivated/made available to us almost for the whole year by using various mechanisms.

Image Credit: http://www.edb.utexas.edu

But how healthy is it to eat mangoes in December? Is there a reason why they were made available to us by nature only in summer and never otherwise? Have we examined the consequences of eating any fruit or vegetable outside of its seasonal cycle before making our purchases?

The reason we are asking all these questions is for all of us to take a look at the cycle of nature that meticulously planned our diets before the global markets opened up and in fact did not let us consume foodstuff that was not conducive to our geography/climate/ethnicity. If there was a reason why the cycle was designed a particular, for man to eat mangoes in summer and jamuns in the rainy season, should we be disturbing that design at all? Is there a chance that eating locally might actually make good sense for the body?

A part of going organic involves eating locally, food that is available in the season and cultivated in perfectly natural conditions by local farmers. And we believe that eating locally and by the seasons is the best way to eat since it involves eating by the design of nature, which is in sync with what is best for our respective ethnicities/geographies. Use our comments section as the soundboard for any thoughts you have on the topic and let us know if you agree with us…