Tips to Eating Fresh Organic Fruits and Vegetables in the Winter

Traci is the owner of HealthyDealsNSteals.com and DiabeticParents.org. She is the mother of two children and recently appeared on Studio 5 (see the click above) to share her tips! She has such wonderful tips on ways to eat healthy on a budget shares those ideas with others on her blog! Today she is guest posting and I am so excited to have her! 

Tips to Eating Fresh Organic Fruits and Vegetables in the Winter

Getting fresh organic fruits and vegetables in the wintertime can be tough here in Utah, but it’s not impossible. There are tips for getting organic and fresh fruit during the winter. Here are just a few:
 
Eat in Season
 
Eating fruits and vegetables in season is probably one of the best ways to save money on pricey winter fruit and vegetable prices and to get the most nutrition out of the foods that you are eating. Some of the best fruits in season during the winter months are bananas, pears, blood oranges, persimmons, clementines, pomegranates, cranberries, pummelos, grapefruit, rhubarb, kiwi, satsuma oranges, kumquats, passion fruit, and tangerines. Vegetables in season during the wintertime include: artichokes, lettuce, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, radishes, rhubarb, snow peas, winter squash, sweet potatoes, celery root, watercress, kale, rutabaga and parsnips.
 
Locate Local Growers
 
Local growers are often a great resource and sell to larger supermarkets and health food stores in the area. A lot of times buying from the grower could potentially save you a little during the winter months. To locate growers in your immediate area, go to LocalHarvest.org. www.localharvest.org.
 
Get to Know Your Grocer
 
Contact your grocer and get to know him or her. Ask what organic fruits and vegetables they will be buying during the winter and ask about availability of their products. A simple call or question on your visit to the store next time can really save you time buying different fruits and vegetables at different stores and help you find the grocer that will provide you the most amount of selection during the cold winter months.
 
Costco
 
Yup, recently even Costco has gone organic. Jeff Lyons, vice president of fresh foods and corporate foods for Costco says this: “We don’t want it to be just a marketing ploy that we carry organics. We have a very astute membership, and they read package [labels]. What if we’re not delivering what people expect from organics?” Expect to see more and more organic fruits and vegetables popping up in Costco stores in the future due to demand. However, Costco will still be hit and miss as to what’s available from trip to trip. And you’ll need to buy it in bulk, so make sure the lower cost of buying the product in bulk meets what your family will eat.
 
Find Recipes That Incorporate Organic Fruits and Vegetables
 
One of the easiest ways to incorporate a lot of the above fruits and vegetables listed is to use recipes that call for them. (Personally I hate spending tons of money on organic fruit and vegetables just to have it go to waste, so this is a great way to get our family to eat that week’s fruits and vegetables). One website, Discovery Health allows you to easily click on the fruit or vegetable and link to information and recipes on that specific fruit or vegetable. http://health.discovery.com/centers/diet-fitness/foodfit/produce-guide-tab-04.html
 
Get Organic Easier
 
An interesting organic whole food product on the market that keeps our family healthy and eating our fruits and vegetables during the winter is called Activz. The product recently launched and is one of the best tasting products that provides all of your 9 servings of daily fruits and vegetables, vitamins, antioxidants, probiotics, minerals and all the other good stuff you need from whole, organic food sources. We put it together as a shake in the morning on the days that I know we won’t be able to get all of our fruits and vegetables. We’ve found we’ve stayed healthier through the winter and are able to get all of our necessary nutrition from whole organic food sources during the wintertime. They have a wonderful strawberry-banana shake. You can find our more by calling 877-488-INFO.

Eating organic in the wintertime isn’t impossible in Utah. It’s just gotten easier with these simple tips!

More great links on this subject:

“Winter Fruits and Vegetables”
“Costco Does Organic Homework”

 

Tags: healthy eating, organic, recipes

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