We can eat most fruit and vegetables out of season because of imports. However, that does not guarantee freshness and it also has a huge impact on the environment. So during the winter months, I tend to eat our lovely root vegetables and winter green vegetables. For irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) sufferers, I would suggest not eating all the winter vegetables in one dish. They can be very tough on the digestive system, so space them out, allow a few days gap between servings. These hardy foods store well, so you don’t need to worry about waste.

Spring greens are a vegetable in their own right. Part of the Brassica family, they are an elongated cabbage type plant, and don’t have the solid heart that a round cabbage has. When they are steamed, they become soft and their texture is creamy without bitterness.

They contain vitamin C for skin and immune health and also vitamin K for bone health. They are being hailed as having cancer preventing properties in some areas.

Spinach is very easy to grow and can be very prolific. It is fantastic for iron, vitamin C and calcium and like the spring greens, it becomes silky and creamy in texture if it is steamed.  

Brassicas are fantastic for obtaining calcium, vitamins A,C and E, folate and potassium. So cauliflower, kales, Brussels, broccoli and cabbage are within this group.

So, you can eat wonderful, seasonal vegetables which can be grown and sourced locally.

An import, which is often missed, is celeriac. It is root vegetable with a bulbous shaped, quite knobbly. In the Mediterranean Basin and in Northern Europe, celeriac grows wild and is widely cultivated. It is also cultivated in North Africa, Siberia, Southwest Asia, and North America. It has a good solid spread of vitamins and minerals, and again is wonderful for bone health with its 39% RDA of vitamin K. It is a great slow release carbohydrate.

I've mentioned celeriac to wet your appetites as we will talk about root vegetables in another article.