preserving vs eating seasonally

[emmac]

i'm all about trying to get back in touch with nature as much as possible.

just wondered what your thoughts were on preserving foods to eat out of season and how natural that is to our species?  i know we've been preserving for a long time but we used to be nomadic and so in tune with seasons and what the seasons had to offer us food-wise. I wonder if we might be healthier sticking to these eating in season principles?

just interested in other people's thoughts

[edenwildfood]

people would have had to preserve to survive seasonal food comes in gluts like fruit, etc, and meat, fruit would be dried smoked etc, acorns processed and stored, nuts etc to get through the winter, you can eat seasonally but also use up a glut of stuff by preserving, i hate to see waste

[cab]

I don't equate natural with ethical, or even healthy - in fact so many of he crops we grow are so far from their wild ancestors in terms of nutritional content, shelf life, etc. its hard to view any traditional diet as natural. And as a lot of what we're foraging is so based on how we've played with our UK ecosystems, I don't see that as very 'natural' either. Plants like chickweed, fat hen, nettle... these familiar garden or agricultural weeds were probably way less common before we started fertilising land with livestock.

That said, seasonality IS GOOD! It means you're eating food fresh, so it'll be full of flavour and it'll be as nutritionally good as it can be. Its also cheaper and encourages us to be more creative. THERE IS NO BAD HERE

So most of our diet in our house is seasonal, with the addition of preserved and stored food to add flavour where its needed. A few dried shrooms added to a stew in winter, jam on toast when we've not got much fresh fruit, etc. Its worth noting that well preserved food retains much of its nutritional value - do it well and you can have the best of both worlds, healthy seasonal food AND some extra, non seasonal flavours with health benefits.

[Brewforagegrow]

Cab is spot on.
I love fresh foraged food, but it's not feasible for me to get out all the time to forage a fresh meal. Preserving helps not only extend the seasons when certain items aren't around but it eases a dependency on getting out and about every day. You also need a very wide reaching knowledge to be able to consider foraging to survive.
I seem to remember reading about Fergus the forage attempting to do it and he didn't manage (though I can't remember why).

So for me, foraging what I can to eat and preserving anything above what I can eat then means I can enrich my diet with the things I've preserved throughout the year.

[foragingmouse]

Our hunter gatherer ancestors definatly preserved food stuff , it's my biggest interest in foraging I find it fascinating that people are so dependant on mod cons such as fridges and electric , most of the information I have used and recreated comes from the states or Australia where the knowledge is still being used , I think not preserving wild food is removing a massive group of flavours available , for instance I steemed and smoked cambium this year and it was really good and next year I will make much more , but the essence of foraging is learning to live and eat within the seasons that being said eating a loaf of fresh baked bread in the middle of winter always tastes better with summer jam on top .
Some processes just are not realistic with busy modern lives I just enjoy the process and the out there factor , but fingers crossed that the solar flare wipes out technology :-)

[Brewforagegrow]

Bring in that solar flare (he says while typing a message on a mobile phone which is as powerful as a computer which is transmitting wirelessly to a place connected to most of the information known to man(and a lot of cat pictures) and storing it where others from all over the world can read it and reply)

I have a love hate relationship with technology, damned if we do and damned if we don't.

[emmac]

thanks for the replies!

It's an interesting balance for sure. We can't "go back" and we're so fortunate to live in an age with so much information and possibility. Saying that, I do think the Amish have got it sussed