Seasonal and local eating: tastier and cheaper. Greener? Less than you'd think.
Eating what's in season where you live is one of the nicest food habits there is. It's also wrapped in some myths, mostly about food miles. Here's what's true and what's just a good marketing story.
The short version
- What it is
- Building your meals around fruit and vegetables that are in season where you live, ideally grown nearby.
- Good for
- Taste, price, variety through the year, supporting local farms.
- Bad at
- Cutting your carbon footprint as much as people think. What you eat matters far more than where it's from.
- Evidence
- Mixed. Good data on food miles; little on health effects of "seasonal" itself.
- Our take
- A lovely habit and a useful building block. Just don't let a local steak feel greener than imported lentils.
What seasonal and local eating actually is
Seasonal eating means choosing produce at the time of year it naturally grows and ripens where you live: asparagus and strawberries in early summer, tomatoes in late summer, apples and pumpkins in autumn, cabbage, leeks and root vegetables in winter. Local eating (people who stick to it strictly are sometimes called "locavores") means buying food grown or made close to home.
The two go together, but they're not the same. Local tomatoes in January usually come from a heated greenhouse. Seasonal mangoes in Singapore are local. Seasonal mangoes in Vienna are not.
How it works
In-season produce is usually picked riper, travels less far, spends less time in storage and is plentiful, so it often tastes better and costs less. That's the solid part.
Nutrients do drop with time after harvest. Vitamin C in particular falls during storage, which is why a review comparing fresh, frozen and canned produce found frozen vegetables can hold their vitamins as well as, or better than, "fresh" ones that sat in a fridge for a week.4 Fresh and local is great. Frozen and imported is fine. Neither is a reason not to eat your vegetables.
On the climate side: food systems cause about a third of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from farming and land use rather than transport.5 For most foods, transport makes up less than 10% of the footprint.1 In a US study, transport was 11% of food's emissions, and the final delivery from producer to shop only 4%.2
What you eat, what you don't
Eat
- Whatever's in season in your region: check a local seasonal calendar
- Root vegetables, cabbage, leeks, kale in winter (in cooler climates)
- Berries, tomatoes, courgettes, beans in summer
- Frozen vegetables and berries all year
- Dried and tinned beans, lentils, grains: no season, low footprint
- Local eggs, fish and dairy where they're good quality
Forget it
- Air-freighted fresh produce: out-of-season berries, green beans, asparagus flown in
- Heated-greenhouse vegetables in deep winter, if you care about carbon
- Buying "local" beef and calling it climate-friendly
- Sad, flavourless out-of-season tomatoes
A seasonal day, in practice
Seasonal eating isn't a meal plan, it's a shopping habit. Walk past the shelf of what's cheap and plentiful this week and build from there. A late-autumn day in a cool climate might look like this:
- Breakfast: porridge with a grated apple, cinnamon and walnuts.
- Lunch: pumpkin or leek-and-potato soup with rye bread and a boiled egg.
- Dinner: trout or a lentil stew with roasted root vegetables and red cabbage.
- Snack: a pear, or yoghurt with frozen berries.
Six months later the same day becomes strawberries on yoghurt, a salad with new potatoes, and asparagus with eggs. Same structure, different shopping list.
In Austria, Germany and Switzerland
The region does seasons properly. Spargel (white asparagus) runs from about April to late June, with the season traditionally ending on 24 June. Then come strawberries, cherries, Marillen (apricots) from the Wachau in high summer, plums for Zwetschkenknödel, and from September pumpkins, apples and pears. Winter is cabbage, Sauerkraut, root vegetables, leeks and stored apples. Weekly farmers' markets (Bauernmarkt, Wochenmarkt) show you what's in season without needing a calendar. The trap: greenhouse tomatoes and imported asparagus in February, which look the part and taste of nothing.
In Singapore
Singapore imports more than 90% of its food,8 so strict local eating isn't realistic. Seasonal still works: mangoes, durian, rambutan and mangosteen have peak months when they're cheapest and best, and local farms grow leafy greens like kai lan, chye sim and bayam, plus eggs and fish. Look for local produce labels at the supermarket and wet market. Sea-freighted fruit from the region is a perfectly good choice; air-freighted berries from the other side of the world, less so.
Alcohol, seasonal and local
OK, now and then
- A glass of local wine or a local beer with a meal
- A seasonal spritzer with soda water
- Local apple cider, dry, in a small glass
Skip it
- Sweet seasonal punches, mulled wine with sugar
- Cocktails with juice and syrups
- "It's local" as a reason for a second bottle
50 Club: one glass of a local wine or beer, with food.
Local doesn't make alcohol healthier. All the details are in our alcohol guide.
What it's good for, with proof
More plants, more variety
Cooking with the seasons nudges you towards fruit, vegetables and legumes, the same foods that a large analysis linked with lower disease risk and some of the lowest environmental impacts.6 The benefit comes from the plants, not the postcode.
Skipping air freight
Air freight is a tiny share of food transport, but it emits roughly 50 times more per tonne per kilometre than shipping by boat.1 Fragile, out-of-season fresh produce is the main culprit. Choosing seasonal avoids most of it.
Less waste, more value
About a quarter of food's emissions come from food lost along the supply chain or wasted by consumers.9 Seasonal produce bought for this week's meals, plus a well-stocked freezer, helps more than the postcode on the label.
The uncomfortable truth
"Local food is always greener." Not when the type of food is the bigger factor. A kilo of beef has a footprint dozens of times bigger than a kilo of peas, wherever it's from.1,3 In a US study, shifting less than one day a week of red meat and dairy calories to other foods did more for the climate than buying everything local.2 And a tomato from a sunny field abroad can have a smaller footprint than one from a heated greenhouse at home.1
The risks
- Narrow winter diet. Strict local eating in a cold climate can get very limited. Frozen, tinned and imported foods fill the gaps.
- Price and access. Farmers' markets aren't cheap or close for everyone. Supermarket seasonal produce counts too.
- Food safety. Unpasteurised local milk and cheese carry infection risks, especially in pregnancy.
Allergies: watch the staples
Seasonal produce is mostly allergen-light, but a few favourites are on the EU list:
| Seasonal staple | Allergen (EU list of 14)7 | Swap |
|---|---|---|
| Celery and celeriac (autumn, winter) | Celery | Parsnip, fennel |
| Walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts from local trees | Tree nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts) | Pumpkin and sunflower seeds |
| Local cheese and dairy | Milk | Oat or soy alternatives |
| Local fish and mussels | Fish, molluscs | Eggs, beans, chicken |
| Rapeseed and mustard greens, local mustard | Mustard | Olive oil and lemon dressing |
Don't do strict local eating if you…
- are pregnant (skip unpasteurised local dairy)
- have several allergies that already limit what you can eat
- have a medical diet that relies on specific foods all year
- have ever had an eating disorder and use food rules to restrict
Healthen me asks about all of these and gives you a different plan if any apply.
How we use seasonal and local eating in your plan
This is a building block. Every food in our database gets a seasonal tag for each region, so your plan in Vienna in November looks different from your plan in Singapore in November. Recipes swap in what's good and cheap where you are, the way the Nordic diet leans on cabbage and berries and the Mediterranean diet on tomatoes and greens.
We don't ban imports. Rice, lentils, olive oil and bananas stay. We just make the seasonal choice the easy one.
This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have a medical condition or take medication, talk to your doctor before changing how you eat.
Sources
- Ritchie H. You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local. Our World in Data, 2020. ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
- Weber CL, Matthews HS. Food-miles and the relative climate impacts of food choices in the United States. Environmental Science & Technology 2008;42(10):3508–3513. doi.org/10.1021/es702969f
- Poore J, Nemecek T. Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 2018;360(6392):987–992. doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216
- Rickman JC, Barrett DM, Bruhn CM. Nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables. Part 1. Vitamins C and B and phenolic compounds. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 2007;87:930–944. doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.2825
- Crippa M et al. Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nature Food 2021;2(3):198–209. doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9
- Clark MA et al. Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2019;116(46):23357–23362. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers, Annex II (the 14 allergens). eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2011/1169/oj
- Singapore Food Agency. Singapore Food Statistics 2024. www.sfa.gov.sg/docs/default-source/publication/sg-food-statistics/singapore-food-statistics-2024.pdf
- Ritchie H. Food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Our World in Data, 2020. ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions