by Michele E. Mukatis

Seasonal availability of foods exists fora reason. Each food’s nutritional components promote seasonal health.For instance, bitter greens help you cleanse and are more readily available in the spring
when your body needs to clean out after the sluggishness of winter.

If you find yourself always hungry, it may be due to a
lack of nutrient density in the food you are eating. For instance, if the food has traveled to get to your market, it loses nutrients, and your body could be asking you to eat more to gain what it’s looking for as far as nutrient content.

This seems to be true in regards to theomegas as well. Omega-
3s are fatty acids found in green plants, fish, specific
seeds and nuts, and animal fats from grazers.They are not as readily available in the winter,when our bodies would slow down and we had less need to be out working hard. Omega-6s are abundant in corn and soy, found in most processed foods.

We use their oils as well as the grains themselves to createcrackers, cookies, salad dressing and sauces. Additionally, animals that grazed would be ready for processing in the fall, after eating a diet high in omega-3s all summer. We could preserve the meat, which would give us the energy we needed to make it through the winter.
Because processed food is available year ‘round, Americans are experiencing what I call nutritional winter. We consume far
higher amounts of omega-6s and are out of balance with their omega-3 intake.

To put this in perspective, omega-3s regulate many of the body’s functions and are the essential building blocks for the body’s cells. They reduce inflammation as well as protect against heart disease and
other chronic illnesses. We need these omega-3s to be more prevalent in our diets from whole foods or supplements. Make no
mistake, however: We cannot live on a diet of hamburgers and French fries, and take supplements thinking that it will make all
the difference.

“How should I get my omega-3s?” you ask.Humans can digest omega-
3s from plants such as flax seed and walnuts, for instance. However, my research indicates that in those foods, it starts out
as an omega-6 fatty acid that our bodies must convert to omega-3
through a multi-step process. If you are vegetarian, it’s a good alternative. If you are not, eat food items in which omega-3s
are already intact: pasture-raised meats, eggs from pastured chickens and cold-water fish with fewer toxicities like herring, canned
light tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish.

The more I read and research, the more eating whole foods, available in their season, makes sense. What better way to honor your body and its desire to get energetic or to relax and rejuvenate.

Michele E. Mukatis
Cultivate Health, Owner/Consultant
Peak to Plains Alliance, Administrator
Slow Food Colorado Springs, Steering Committee

Tags: Food, Nutrition

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 8:24 am and is filed under Cooking & Recipes, Health & Healing, Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.