fruits in winter

[ApatheticNoMore]

Do you eat fruits in winter? Nothing is in season. Well ok citrus is in season! But not much else. And tropical fruits (bananas, mangos, pineapple) are coming a long way, though I do love them.

I was reading about what the French eat for breakfast, which isn't much (and I haven't been able to get myself to eat nothing for breakfast - being an american and therefore a pig or soemthing :)) And one webpages said "In winter, the French prefer to eat preserved fruits for the extra sugar that they need. Fruits are not wholly consumed. In fact, 3-4 slices of peaches are enough for every single serving of a traditional French breakfast"

For the extra sugar they need, oh I love that. Excuse me I must go get a chocolate bar now, the extra sugar I *need* you know! But preserved fruit is one way to go (though I don't know if the french or anyone really do it), and maybe makes a lot more sense than fresh mango. I remember the sugar syrup home preserved apricots of my childhood.

[frugal-one]

We still eat fruit in winter. Granted, not the variety when everything is in season but do bananas, pineapple, oranges, apples, kiwi, blueberries, and pears and, occasionally, grapes and grapefruit. We eat some fruits frozen (ie blueberries), and also, get our fill of dried fruits in granola and bars, plus muesli. Can't imagine not eating any fruit.

[Rosemary]

We eat a huge quantity of fresh fruits and vegetables year-round but we try to buy seasonally.
For part of the winter, domestic kiwi and pomegranates are available. Citrus is great from about December through March. Apples and pears keep well in cold storage and so are available from domestic sources for most of winter. I usually buy organic apples until the quality is decreasing - which hasn't happened yet this year. We also use frozen wild blueberries (from Maine).

When we're low on fruits, we eat more vegetables. I eat vegetables for breakfast just about every day, topped with 1/2 avocado. OK, the avocado is from Mexico.

[Kestra]

Yep, also huge amount of fruit year round. But in the winter it's more likely the usual trio of bananas, apples and oranges. There's more variety in the summer. It's mostly fresh fruit as well. Dried is too easy to eat too much, and I just don't think about frozen that often. Though we do use a lot of applesauce, and some raisins.

[razz]

I freeze fruit in the summer to enjoy in the winter and then supplement with other fresh items as they are available. Three fruits a day for certain.

[redfox]

We have apples & pears, which are local & stored in sheds, for distribution all winter. Yummm! The only tropical fruit we buy is a few bananas every week. Otherwise it's pippin fruits & preserves till spring. We eat a ton of root crops during the winter, roasted veggies at least three times a week.

[RosieTR]

We preserve fruit as jam whenever we can, but also buy apples, oranges, occasional bananas (only DH likes those) and some tropical fruits like pineapple. Tropical fruits do also have a season, for example in Central America, mango season is what we'd call spring here. Some, like bananas, are available year-round. Citrus season as well is in winter and some places, such as the desert SW, have difficulty with fruit in late summer because it's too hot and dry for most things to fruit then.

[Glo]

In winter we eat apples, oranges, kiwi, bananas, grapes, and pineapple. I'm not giving these up.

[Miss Cellane]

Fruit is a big problem for me when it comes to eating local. New England doesn't produce fruit in the winter.

Thanks to cousins who are blueberry fanatics with their own blueberry bushes, I usually have 4-5 quarts of frozen blueberries in the freezer.

Everything else I have to buy. And I'm just not willing to have just apples and pears all winter long--pretty much the major fruit crops that are grown locally that can over-winter. I don't like jams and jellies. So, yes, I buy bananas and oranges and tangerines and avocados and occasionally splurge on grapes when they are on sale.

And I'm glad that I live now, when I can have fresh fruit all winter long.

[razz]

This thread made me look up the value of dried vs fresh fruit. I was surprised to find that 1/4 cup of dried is generally as good as 1 cup of fresh. Neat to know.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/ask-a-health-expert/is-dried-fruit-good-or-bad-for-me/article9843229/

[ApatheticNoMore]

Fruit I have eaten in the last month or two: many many bananas, 2 small pineapples, 2-3 mangoes, a pear, decent amount of citrus, some dried cranberries. MANY avocados if one counts them (from mexico). Some apple juice (not a great deal). I really don't eat summer fruit out of season. But the idea of preserved fruit actually appealed (those apricots, those sugar syrup apricots of my childhood, growing on the big 'ol tree, canned in summer) - though I realize it's pretty sugary. Well then one could just eat less of it then (less fruit in general in winter and maybe some of it preserved fruit like those apricots).

It appealed to me like nothing less than a return to sanity (and simplicity :)), rather than all those imported fruits (not as a solution to global probs - because it's really not! p.s. buy fair trade). But I don't plan to give up tropical fruits entirely, ok I'm absolutely addicted to bananas. It's just a more of one thing, less of the other thing - maybe *less* imported fruits.

[SteveinMN]

Oranges are in season during the winter. For medical reasons, we don't buy grapefruit, but pretty much any other variety is fair game. Apples can be cold-stored successfully for several months, so we eat local apples until they're no longer available or economically feasible. The rest of the fruit we eat, though, is what we stock up on throughout the rest of the year -- jars of applesauce, cans of pineapple, and bags of frozen organic berries, peaches, and mango -- purchased in quantity when they're on sale.

[Bacawind]

We are vegan, so yes, we eat fruit in the winter. We've been having a lot of apples lately. I just found sauteed apples and onions! Really good! We go through a case of bananas every 7 to 10 days, then add in miscellaneous fruits. I make applesauce in a slow cooker, I leave it chunky so I can use it in various ways later. I freeze apples, bananas, pineapple, and avocado.

[Gardenarian]

I seem to be eating a lot of dried fruits - raisins, apricots, dates, figs. Not a conscious choice, but it kind of makes sense. I've also been craving applesauce with cinnamon.
I'm not a huge fruit eater unless it is fresh off the tree - then I can eat forever.

[Aroha]

It's winter here, we have oranges and kiwifruit in season, that's about it I think. Oh the other thing is banana passionfruit on a vine down the back of the section, it's probably a weed but the fruit is edible and I have one every few days. I also buy apples, pears, imported bananas and grapes. Also eat dates and some tinned pineapple. My dh won tins of apricots and peaches at golf so we eat those too.

[awakenedsoul]

My orchard produces more in the winter. I have pomegranates, guavas, persimmons, navel oranges, Moro blood oranges, red grapefruit, Algerian tangerines, and meyer lemons.

I buy dried apricot slabs, bananas, frozen and dried cranberries, and kiwis.