Ridgefield's Talk of Our Town

Learn From The Squirrels Before You Buy Food

By Dave Tyler

Have you ever noticed that the apples don’t taste as good now as they did in September?  They’re still available for purchase in the grocery store, but something’s just a little off.  By following the natural cycle of fruit and vegetable harvests, we can get in tune with our bodies and even make them work better.  It’s a luxury to be able to go to the store and get tropical fruit all year round.  What industrial society wants you to do might not be what your body needs.

In the health community, I have many friends who follow different dietary lifestyles.  Some folks swear that being Vegan is the way to go, while others are hypnotized by the smell of organic bacon.  I even have friends who live a raw vegan lifestyle, consuming things like coconut and pineapple all the time. 

In fact, many friends who ascribe to a raw food lifestyle end up moving from the Northeast to warmer climates like Arizona, Florida, or even Hawaii.  Their body is telling them that if they’re going to eat food in this way, they need to be in a warmer climate where raw food comes naturally.

I’d like to challenge you to an experiment.  Try to eat more foods that are appropriate to the winter months, that are cooked slowly and methodically.  Have you ever thought about the fact that squirrels run around in the fall to stock up for the winter?  Humans used to do the same thing, but now we run around dropping kids off at soccer practice instead.  We don’t live with the anxiety of having enough food for the winter.  I think squirrels would eat apples too if they could find them in January, but that is not really what nature intended.

Next time you shop, stock up on the foods on this list for a good winter feast of whole foods that are grown in this climate at this time of year.  You may find yourself staying warmer, having more focus and feeling at ease with your diet.  Prepare your foods slowly and with care.  We are mammals after all, most mammals hibernate in winter.

Great Winter Foods:

• Grapefruit
• Lemons
• Oranges
• Tangerines
• Chestnuts
• Kale
• Leeks
• Radicchio
• Radishes
• Rutabaga
• Turnips

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