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The concept of a seasonal diet is actually really simple
It means eating foods that are grown locally to you at the same time as you eat them. In other words, if you are living in the UK in spring and you want to eat a seasonal diet you should be eating vegetables that are ready to harvest in the UK in spring. Or, if you are living in the UK in the winter; you should be eating vegetables that are ready in the UK winter time and so on for all four UK seasons!
So what are the benefits of eating a Seasonal diet?
Eating a seasonal diet is good for us for so many reasons. Eating vegetables, grown near to where we live, means less travel time and less fossil fuels, making it the more sustainable and more nutritious option. It’s a win win. But more importantly for me, eating a seasonal diet connects me to the land we live off. When I eat with the seasons, I can feel my body connect to the natural rhythms of the year. From the comfort of a winter hot pot in the long February nights to the excitement of a freshly harvested plum tomato, sliced on toast with loads of garlic and salt to cool down a long July day! Eating this way helps me connect to resting, to energising and reminds me life is all about cycles.
Seasonality is not just about our planet and body health. Eating a local diet means supporting local food producers and farmers to continue to grow our food. When we buy their produce, we support their livelihoods and our local food economy. This is so important for long term food security, now and in our future. Currently the UK imports 46% of the food we consume in our homes. More and more we rely on supermarkets to feed ourselves and our families. When we buy local, direct from the farmers in our area we are doing our bit to create security in our food system.
If nothing else it’s just a real treat to get to know and meet the people who feed us. Beats queuing up in Tesco any day if you ask me!
Here at The MAZI Project we are super-duper-mega excited to be changing to a seasonal menu. We will launch four new menus this year; one for each season. We launched the first in April with our BRAND NEW Spring Recipes. We have joined up with small scale vegetable farmers working across Bristol. We are very excited to be buying food from Five Acre Farm, Fairy Hill Farm, Radford Mill and Lush Greens.
All of our new producers are committed to growing sustainably and putting the environment first. This means no chemicals and a lot of love for soil and wildlife! Eating a seasonal and local diet is better for our health and the health of our planet and we are really excited to be standing up for the fight against climate change with you in our MAZI community!
Look out for new ingredients and produce over the next few months – Lily (Project Manager at The MAZI Project)
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