Along this journey to find the most wholesome honest foods I have continued to take baby steps towards doing everything right, recently I've been trying to only eat in-season produce...as a fruit lover, this winter season has forced me to be very creative! Do you know what fruits and veggies are in season?...in December in the midwest, not much unfortunately!

Here is a great website to help you eat locally grown, in season, in your region:

http://www.sustainabletable.org/shop/seasonal/

So what should we as Midwesterners do to stay honest? Try your best is the advice I keep inheriting from local blogs, information pages, and health food sites...but I am not satisfied with that. Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilema" (which you should probably read if you too are on the investigated living path) has some ideas:

"If you have the space, consider buying a freezer. A freezer will encourage you to put up food from the farmers' market, allowing you to buy produce in bulk when it is at the height of its season, which is when it will be the most abundant and therefore cheapest. And freezing (unlike canning) does not significantly diminish the nutritional value of produce. That said, canning can be another way to preserve vegetables and fruits beyond the summer months."

http://michaelpollan.com/resources/sustainable-eating-nutrition/#fa...

Too late for you if you haven't frozen any of your local delcious produce!

But wait...it's America, the reality is we have the technology to grow foods year round. As a culture we have eliminated seasons for some foods (Scary). Check your local super market, there is produce OBVIOUSLY from other seasons readily available in large quantities: bananas (summer--tropical even), apples (fall), blueberries (summer), CORN (summer)...so how did they grow those?

What about hydroponics? Is that organic? can that be found locally? Wikipedia quick search for hydroponics: Hydroponics (From the Greek words hydro, water and ponos, labor) is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrientsolutions, in water, without soil.

Essentially, humans are in charge of feeding the plants the nutrients that otherwise the soil provides. There is some debate on whether or not this system is natural, safe, and nutritionally sound---my advice? INVESTIGATE IT YOURSELF! Kansas City folks, there is a hydroponic store in the rivermarket...just go check it out and ask a bunch of questions. Go to Badseed (ongoing, local farmers marker) on Fridays and ask the farmers their what they know about it.

you get the idea

One example of produce manufactured year-round:

The Tomato: Tomatoes are often picked unripe (and thus colored green) and ripened in storage or during transit with ETHYLENE. Ethylene is a hydrocarbon gas produced by many fruits that acts as the molecular cue to begin the ripening process. Tomatoes ripened in this way tend to keep longer but have poorer flavor and a mealier, starchier texture than tomatoes ripened on the plant.

Yuck.

The Mango

If the mangoes are to be sold as fresh fruits, they must be treated with warm water bath to remove any dirt or fungi from the peel. It is recommended to place them in 150.8 degree F water bath for 5 minutes and then let them cool. Then they are shipped to american markets to eat. SO WAIT. Mangos in the grocery store are boiled? They're not even fresh? Depressing

http://www.naturland.de/fileadmin/MDB/documents/Publication/English...

Eat investigatively. Eat local. Eat in season. Eat FOOD.