I was browsing the internet when I stumbled upon this cool little iPhone app that allows you to find produce based on whether its in season, and whether its locally grown— fittingly called Seasons. How cool is that? My fiance downloaded to his iPhone for me to play with (I’m not cool enough to have an iPhone myself), and I am having lots of fun with it.

There are five reasons that I can come up with to seek out locally grown food, in season food:

1. Better for the environment - Trucks don’t have to haul the produce over long distances.
2. Better taste - The faster the produce gets from the tree to your mouth, the fresher it will be & the better it will taste. I have found this to be especially true with avocados.
3. More vitamins - If you are buying food in season it was probably grown outdoors with the right weather conditions for that particular piece of produce, which enhances the nutritional content.
4. Great deals - I.E. there is an abundance of strawberries in strawberry season so it drives the price down.
5. Spiritual reasons? - Eating in season is a big part of Chinese medicine, and Ayurvedic teachings. Plus, it makes sense to stay in harmony with natural relationship between our bodies and the earth.

The way Seasons works is it asks you for your location and it pulls the date from your iPhone. With that info, it gives you lists of produce that tell you what is currently in season, going out of season, and coming in season. When you click the item, it tells you a brief history of the it, and an interesting graph that shows when you can buy the food local and when you can buy it shipped long distance. You can narrow the main list to only show what it grown locally.

Since owning this app, I have learned many random facts about food. Like, did you know that there are about 70 different varieties of produce that are always in season including carrots, broccoli, bananas, avocados and most types of lettuce? And did you know that garlic originally came from Asia and that China is the largest producer of it? (I would have guessed Italy). Okay, I’ll stop with the annoying facts…

Check it out if you have an iPhone, or maybe you can find some sort of hack to run it on your PC. That’s not really my department. If all else fails, the only back up I can recommend is the book Fresh Produce Guide, which functions as an encyclopedia of 300 different varieties of produce. In addition to the seasonality, this book describes how to select the the best fruit/veggies, and common ways to cook and store them. However, it’s not as convenient as the app, because you can’t just pull up what is in season now. Good luck, and remember that farmers markets are a surefire way to eat locally grown, in season.