New Season, New Food: How To Eat Seasonal This Spring

Posted on Apr 07, 2014 by Bridget Greenlee (G+)  | Filed Under: spring, fruits, vegetables, health, seasonal, local, simple, diet, pasta, holiday

Jump into a healthier lifestyle with fresh fruits and vegetables.

The start of a new season reminds us to re-examine our lives, and inspires us to turn over a new leaf. Spring is a great time to re-evaluate. Perhaps the New Year’s resolution didn’t quite get off the ground the way you planned it. Or maybe, like so many people, the long winter months have resulted in a few extra pounds that you’d like to drop before summer comes.

Whatever your reason, let this spring motivate you to rethink your diet. Spring and summer inspire us to get back to basics, eating fresher and healthier foods, especially more fruits and vegetables. Allow this natural inclination to guide your spring meal choices. It is the absolute perfect time of year for this, with fruits and vegetables coming back into full bloom. These healthy spring recipes will get you started toward a better way of life.

Spring Pasta Salad

Something about a pasta salad just screams: spring! Whether it’s because they make us think of warm weather and picnics or because they’re usually chock full of fresh vegetables, pasta salads are a diverse way to get good nutrients and great taste. Although pasta salads are not on many top lists of healthy foods, they should be.

First of all, be careful with the dressing. A healthy blend of foods can be ruined with a fattening dressing full of ingredients like mayonnaise or cheese. Use a minimal amount of dressing to add just a bit of flavor to the salad, and make your dressing as healthy as possible with fresh, low-fat ingredients.

Secondly, using a whole wheat or vegetable-based pasta adds a lot of extra nutrition where empty carbohydrates would otherwise be.

Lastly, the higher proportion of fruits and vegetables to pasta, the better! This easy-to-make salad has a light dressing consisting of olive oil, mustard, honey, garlic, lemon, salt and pepper, and is full of healthy and fresh veggies like peas, asparagus, tomatoes and peppers. Once you have a good base and a healthy dressing you enjoy, change it up with anything and everything fresh and tasty.

Healthy Holidays

Spring holidays, like Easter, can be a slippery slope that leads to overindulgence -- but they don’t have to. Don’t be afraid to stray from the ordinary meal choices and introduce a new, healthier dish to create a new family tradition. Websites like cookinglight.com have entire healthy menus planned out, menus with lots of flavor and much fewer calories than the norm.

Following all or part of one of these festive meal plans takes the guesswork out of cooking. And with dishes like grilled wild salmon, ham and asparagus frittata and fresh berry pavlova, these healthy choices don’t sacrifice flavor. Find the menu and recipes here.

If you don’t want to re-imagine your entire Easter dinner, make healthy substitutes to lighten up those dishes you can’t live without. This allows you to eat your holiday favorites, with less guilt. For example, if a recipe calls for butter or margarine, applesauce can often fill in for half of it. Using olive oil instead of vegetable oil or butter to prevent sticking in a pan adds healthy oils and removes calories.

Whole-wheat flour, bread, and pasta are much better substitutes for their white alternatives. Leaner meats, like turkey, can be used instead of bacon and ground beef. If you know a bit about basic nutrition and make an effort to make smart decisions, it’s easy to cut calories and fat with simple substitutions.

Eat Seasonal

You’ve heard it before, but eating seasonally is really a great way to make sure you’re getting a great variety of healthy items. By making these fruits and vegetables the basis of your meals this spring, you will be making great strides in the right direction. Epicurious.com has lots of great recipes for appetizers, main courses and desserts based around spring’s best and freshest ingredients like asparagus, peas, rhubarb and strawberries. They advise users to keep recipes simple so as to let the natural flavors of the ingredients shine through. And not to worry: good spring eating isn’t just salads, so don’t let that fear of the mundane scare you off.

For your next spring gathering, why not serve appetizers like lemon and mint braised artichokes, spring vegetable and quinoa pilaf, or fresh pea and mint soup? For dinner, nosh on sliced filet mignon, halibut with asparagus and fennel, or even fettuccine with asparagus, peas, and pancetta. And don’t forget about dessert – lemon-raspberry cupcakes and even cream puffs are on the menu! Find the delicious recipes here.

Enjoying the perks of the burgeoning spring harvest has many perks for your health. Not only can you get great deals at farmers’ markets and grocery stores on seasonal and local fruits and vegetables, but these fresh foods are great for you and can be incorporated into your diet in a multitude of creative ways.

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