By Jessica Geller, News Correspondent
Eating seasonal, local produce is still possible in the month of January despite the cold and snowy weather.
Potatoes, kale, beets and carrots are just some of the many seasonal produce items that can easily be found this month. These vegetables are stored after the fall harvest in cool, dry places and are then sold throughout the winter.
Rachel Rummel, a health science major and executive board member Slow Food Northeastern, a club which organizes community-supported agriculture, said, “when you buy and eat local, you are buying from people who care about food. They are invested in how it came into existence. You aren’t worrying about what you are eating. It’s nice to connect with the person who is growing your food.”
Rummel and Slow Food Northeastern have been instrumental in bringing weekly shipments of local produce to campus. Last week’s shipment included sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, radishes, romaine lettuce, mustard greens, kale and russet potatoes.
“Most of the root vegetables are best roasted. [Last week], I made loaded russet potatoes with local chives, dairy, mushrooms, and tomatoes,” Rummel said.
She splits the box of vegetables with her roommates to make it more affordable.
“If you were to go buy organic food from the grocery store versus [buying a box], it does end up saving you money. Plus, you don’t have to leave campus.”
A frequent dish on their dinner table is a salad with sweet potatoes, oranges, walnuts and goat cheese. The sweet potatoes, lettuce and oranges come from her weekly farm box. The other items she buys are from local grocers.
The stereotype new years resolution is to eat healthier. Making a vegetable soup with the bountiful root vegetables is the perfect place to start according to Rebecca Nesson, a member of the League of Urban Canners, a Massachusetts group which harvests and preserves produce from public properties like Davis Square or from cooperative back yards.
“[Vegetable soup] is very flexible. You can add pasta, rice or whole grains or eat it with bread to make it a bigger meal. I add canned tomatoes that we have preserved into it,” she said.
Nesson also said she uses leftover peels to create a vegetable stock. Other members, she said, can cherries, peaches and apples among other fruits.
“Once canned, the fruit lasts indefinitely. I have hundreds of cans for my family and I to enjoy during the colder months. I use jam in place of other sweeteners,” she said.
One way to incorporate canned fruit in the winter is to put it in oatmeal instead of adding brown sugar.
Rummel said that food choices like these are crucial to leading a conscious, healthy lifestyle.
“There are so few things in the world that you have to do. Basically, just sleeping and eating. Why not do that as best as you possibly can since you have to eat something? You might as well make it a pleasurable experience,” she said.
Other options for eating local or seasonally on campus are the Fresh Truck, which periodically parks on Forsyth street near the Ruggles station and Northeastern’s own farmers market, held on Wednesdays from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m at the Curry Student Center. The farmer’s market hosts half a dozen vendors who sell things like produce, bread and popcorn. Rummel said that, on the truck, there is always a fun variety of items which can help bring quality food right to the students and faculty on campus.
