One evening in late December, my daughter Molly and I were enjoying her favorite meal. The wonderful and tasty dish called calabacitas requires fresh green summer squash, fresh yellow crookneck squash, fresh yellow onions, fresh jalapenos, fresh roasted corn and as a topping, fresh lettuce and tomatoes.

Weird, huh? I had to stop and think a minute. She is right: It is weird if you think about it. How is it that we are able to get fresh summer vegetables in the middle of winter in the Hudson Valley?

If we follow the seasons of the year, squash and onions — and really, all produce — should not be available to us until at least June, unless you are using winter squash and onions from storage. Winter squash is squash you pick in fall, like a Hubbard or acorn, and then cure or store for use in winter.

It has a thicker skin and a completely different taste from summer zucchini. Taking my contact list in hand and using my experience in food supplies, along with my perhaps now useful degree in Agriculture, I set out to find out just how this fresh produce reached our table in December.

Where did it come from? Squash is a fairly fragile vegetable; hence the name. Like all vegetables, it is composed of water, sugar and fibers inside a thin and delicate skin. There are more than 15 varieties. For optimal nutritional value and taste, most are eaten during the season in which they are grown, because, once picked, squash last about 14 days under the best of conditions.

After that, they begin to lose their water content, dry out, get moldy and end up as trash or compost. And like all produce, squashes begin to lose their flavor and nutritional value the moment that they are picked.

You might say they depreciate. So, squash must get to the grocery-store shelf quickly — right? I asked a local grocer how often he received produce deliveries. I was told three to four times per week: about every other day. A look at the boxes in back told me that the produce came from either Mexico or Arizona.

I remembered that the produce-growing regions in January are primarily in Florida and Arizona. As the days lengthen, growing regions slowly advance north.

An old friend of mine, still in the produce business, describes the actual movement of growing regions as more like this:. January to March: Florida, south Texas, Arizona, Mexico March to June: Florida, California, then up the coast from Georgia to eventually New Jersey June to August: everywhere except south Texas, Arizona, southern New Mexico September to October: southward retreat to Florida, California November to December: California, Arizona, south Texas, Mexico.

Phoenix, Arizona is 2, miles as the crow flies. If the little green squash came from Arizona, as the list above verifies its December location, it had been on the road 36 hours at a minimum. The company that delivered the squash bought the squash at a terminal market. As the name suggests, a terminal market is a large central market where goods are bought and sold, usually near a large transportation hub.

Though there is a small terminal market in Albany, companies and grocery stores usually purchase out of larger markets during the winter. That little squash was probably there. If I got the code from the produce box, I could in fact tell you the exact route that little green squash made. My next step was to call a respectable produce company in the terminal market.

As the market operates 24 hours each day, these guys work long and crazy hours. Most of the trucks come in early, and purchases are made and transactions occur before most of us wake up. My contact tells me that the trucks from Arizona are scheduled to arrive at night.

Cases of produce usually go out the same or next day. The company that bought the squash takes it to its facility and then repacks it for delivery to the store.

Read on for our top picks of healthy winter produce, plus ways to cook and eat it to retain the most nutrients possible. RELATED: 7 Days of Clean Eating, Made Simple. Many root veggies are in season in the winter, including parsnips and turnips.

Turnips are a cruciferous vegetable, known for their high concentrations of vitamins, minerals and health-promoting carotenoids. She recommends adding them to soups and stews.

Roasting them is another good option; toss them in olive oil first to help your body absorb their fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K. Or, combine the turnips with other root veggies in this Root Vegetable Salad with Miso Dressing. You might tend to pass over this vegetable at the grocery store without thinking twice.

It resembles a cross between a white onion and celery and tastes milder than licorice-flavored seeds. Fennel is a good source of vitamin C, potassium, fiber and folate.

For a quick but impressive dish, you can also add raw slices to this Fall Cleanse Kale Salad Recipe. RELATED: 10 Recipes to Satisfy Your Brussels Sprouts Obsession.

Roast them with olive oil, salt and pepper to retain their nutrients and help you absorb the vitamin A. Or try roasting them with lemon slices so the veggies absorb the juice and drizzle with a little butter, like this Roasted Lemon Pepper Brussels Sprouts recipe.

RELATED: How to Know If You Have an Iron Deficiency. For a nutrient-packed alternative to potato chips, Haas recommends coating the kale leaves with a little olive oil and baking them into kale chips.

Sick of your usual salad? Toss the greens with feta cheese, pomegranate seeds, sliced almonds and balsamic vinaigrette. Or, sauté them with cumin and add to tacos. We also love this this Collard Greens, Quinoa and Chicken Burrito recipe.

Navel oranges, mandarin oranges and grapefruit are some of the most flavorful options during winter months.

Seasonal winter vegetables. Here are the vegetables that see increased sales during the winter. Broccoli. Broccoli plants can reach This guide can help you explore different fruits and vegetables throughout the year. Seasonal produce in your area will vary by Most of the avocados sold in the United States and Canada are imported from Mexico, where peak growing season extends

Winter produce sale - With a few shopping tips, you can walk away with great produce options no matter what month you're picking up your ingredients Seasonal winter vegetables. Here are the vegetables that see increased sales during the winter. Broccoli. Broccoli plants can reach This guide can help you explore different fruits and vegetables throughout the year. Seasonal produce in your area will vary by Most of the avocados sold in the United States and Canada are imported from Mexico, where peak growing season extends

If we follow the seasons of the year, squash and onions — and really, all produce — should not be available to us until at least June, unless you are using winter squash and onions from storage. Winter squash is squash you pick in fall, like a Hubbard or acorn, and then cure or store for use in winter.

It has a thicker skin and a completely different taste from summer zucchini. Taking my contact list in hand and using my experience in food supplies, along with my perhaps now useful degree in Agriculture, I set out to find out just how this fresh produce reached our table in December.

Where did it come from? Squash is a fairly fragile vegetable; hence the name. Like all vegetables, it is composed of water, sugar and fibers inside a thin and delicate skin. There are more than 15 varieties. For optimal nutritional value and taste, most are eaten during the season in which they are grown, because, once picked, squash last about 14 days under the best of conditions.

After that, they begin to lose their water content, dry out, get moldy and end up as trash or compost. And like all produce, squashes begin to lose their flavor and nutritional value the moment that they are picked. You might say they depreciate.

So, squash must get to the grocery-store shelf quickly — right? I asked a local grocer how often he received produce deliveries. I was told three to four times per week: about every other day. A look at the boxes in back told me that the produce came from either Mexico or Arizona.

I remembered that the produce-growing regions in January are primarily in Florida and Arizona. As the days lengthen, growing regions slowly advance north. An old friend of mine, still in the produce business, describes the actual movement of growing regions as more like this:.

January to March: Florida, south Texas, Arizona, Mexico March to June: Florida, California, then up the coast from Georgia to eventually New Jersey June to August: everywhere except south Texas, Arizona, southern New Mexico September to October: southward retreat to Florida, California November to December: California, Arizona, south Texas, Mexico.

Phoenix, Arizona is 2, miles as the crow flies. If the little green squash came from Arizona, as the list above verifies its December location, it had been on the road 36 hours at a minimum.

The company that delivered the squash bought the squash at a terminal market. As the name suggests, a terminal market is a large central market where goods are bought and sold, usually near a large transportation hub.

Though there is a small terminal market in Albany, companies and grocery stores usually purchase out of larger markets during the winter. That little squash was probably there. The combined Ports of Los Angeles LA and Long Beach LB are typically the number one and three ports for.

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Search DAT. Where does our winter produce come from anyway? Dean Croke December 5, Market Update Broker , Carrier , Owner-Operator , Shipper. Categories Best Practices and Benchmarks Broker News Carrier News COVID DAT News DAT Product News DATCON Flatbed markets Freight Rates Market Update My Craziest Load Podcast Rate Trend of the Week Reefer markets Transportation Tuesday Trucking Industry Trends Trucking Lifestyle Trucking Regulations Uncategorized Van markets.

Share on facebook. Share on linkedin. Share on twitter. Share on reddit. Share on email. Related Posts. Navel oranges, mandarin oranges and grapefruit are some of the most flavorful options during winter months.

Stock up now for an extra boost of vitamin C, as well as vitamin A and fiber. This festive-colored fruit is in season from late fall to early winter and is a great source of antioxidants and phytonutrients like beta-carotene , plus potassium and vitamin C.

Eat the seeds plain or as a topping for low-fat yogurt. Strain them into a juice and heat it to reduce it into a glaze for pork or poultry, suggests Haas. Or, sprinkle the seeds onto hearty hot cereals, like oatmeal or this Persimmon-Pomegranate Quinoa Breakfast Bowl.

Check out these refreshing strawberry recipes. Looking for a fun and fresh workout routine to kick off your summer? Step away from the screen and bring your workouts outside with this amazing Holistic Outdoor Training audio program. All rights reserved.

A health, fitness and lifestyle site brought to you by Daily Burn. Try Online Fitness Program Risk Free. Main Menu. Cheap and Healthy Winter Produce to Buy Now.

Winter produce sale - With a few shopping tips, you can walk away with great produce options no matter what month you're picking up your ingredients Seasonal winter vegetables. Here are the vegetables that see increased sales during the winter. Broccoli. Broccoli plants can reach This guide can help you explore different fruits and vegetables throughout the year. Seasonal produce in your area will vary by Most of the avocados sold in the United States and Canada are imported from Mexico, where peak growing season extends

The toolkit is based on the seasonal produce guide published by the United States Department of Agriculture. Purchasing fresh produce in season costs less and helps WIC families get more out of the temporary increase to their Fruits and Vegetables Benefit. More information on the temporary increase to the Fruits and Vegetables Benefit can be found here: Fruits and Vegetables Benefit Increase webpage.

SNAP-Ed Seasonal Produce Guide. SNAP-Ed Fall Recipes. Healthy Eating on a Budget MyPlate. Copy and paste the text to share on your social media platforms to promote the WIC Fruits and Vegetables Benefit Increase.

To use associated images, click on the "image" button to enlarge the image, then right click and "save as. CaliforniaWIC WIC WhatIsWIC WelcomeToWIC GetMoreWithWIC WICWelcomes WICWorks PublicHealth Health4All Nutrition NutritionMatters HealthyCalifornia WICFamilies FruitsAndVegetables FruitsAndVeggies FarmersMarket EatYourVegetables NourishingFoods PlantFoods MoreVeggies MoreFruits WhatsOnMyPlate Health HealthyLifestyle HealthyLife HealthyChoices HealthyFood NutritionTips.

Winter gives us a chance to try out new healthy recipes for soups, pies, stews, and desserts using fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables. WIC families can purchase seasonal fruits and vegetables with their Fruits and Vegetables Benefit, which has been increased through March!

Use this guide to shop for even more seasonal fruits and vegetables at WIC-approved grocers and farmers that accept the WIC Card.

Produce listed here may become available at different times during the season. Visit MyFamily. gov for more information about the benefit increase or CaliforniaWIC.

Winter squash is squash you pick in fall, like a Hubbard or acorn, and then cure or store for use in winter. It has a thicker skin and a completely different taste from summer zucchini. Taking my contact list in hand and using my experience in food supplies, along with my perhaps now useful degree in Agriculture, I set out to find out just how this fresh produce reached our table in December.

Where did it come from? Squash is a fairly fragile vegetable; hence the name. Like all vegetables, it is composed of water, sugar and fibers inside a thin and delicate skin.

There are more than 15 varieties. For optimal nutritional value and taste, most are eaten during the season in which they are grown, because, once picked, squash last about 14 days under the best of conditions.

After that, they begin to lose their water content, dry out, get moldy and end up as trash or compost. And like all produce, squashes begin to lose their flavor and nutritional value the moment that they are picked. You might say they depreciate. So, squash must get to the grocery-store shelf quickly — right?

I asked a local grocer how often he received produce deliveries. I was told three to four times per week: about every other day. A look at the boxes in back told me that the produce came from either Mexico or Arizona. I remembered that the produce-growing regions in January are primarily in Florida and Arizona.

As the days lengthen, growing regions slowly advance north. An old friend of mine, still in the produce business, describes the actual movement of growing regions as more like this:.

January to March: Florida, south Texas, Arizona, Mexico March to June: Florida, California, then up the coast from Georgia to eventually New Jersey June to August: everywhere except south Texas, Arizona, southern New Mexico September to October: southward retreat to Florida, California November to December: California, Arizona, south Texas, Mexico.

Phoenix, Arizona is 2, miles as the crow flies. If the little green squash came from Arizona, as the list above verifies its December location, it had been on the road 36 hours at a minimum.

The company that delivered the squash bought the squash at a terminal market. As the name suggests, a terminal market is a large central market where goods are bought and sold, usually near a large transportation hub. Though there is a small terminal market in Albany, companies and grocery stores usually purchase out of larger markets during the winter.

That little squash was probably there. If I got the code from the produce box, I could in fact tell you the exact route that little green squash made. Tune into DAT iQ Live, live on YouTube or LinkedIn , 10am ET every Tuesday. Most of that volume enters the U.

at Pharr, Texas, in the McAllen freight market. Onions come primarily from the PNW, with lettuce originating in Arizona and California, also known as the U. Salad Bowl. Bananas are not grown commercially in the U.

and are, far and away, the biggest fruit seller in grocery stores. Knowing when and where produce originates is a key to understanding the demand for temperature-controlled freight over the quieter winter months.

The major freight market for this produce is Yuma, Arizona. Each year, beginning in mid-to-late November, Church Brothers Farms in Salinas, CA, relocates its entire lettuce production facility to Yuma.

This year, the move occurred in 53 hours, using around 60 flatbed trucks for the mile haul. For truckload carriers, this means leafy green volumes drop off in Salinas and begin to increase in Yuma between November and March before transitioning back to California in the Spring.

Farmers can grow two, and sometimes three, crop rotations on the same plot of land in a year.

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