We may be rapidly moving into fall but it is still unseasonably warm where I live which offers the perfect opportunity to reach for the end of season produce. Local tomatoes are still abundant and the last of the seasons peaches and nectarines sit side by side in the store with ripe corn. It is an abundant time of year!
This recipe takes only ten minutes to prepare and is a perfect example of how easy it is to eat local, seasonal whole foods. Visually it is exciting for the eye and the high vitamin C and fresh flavour dances on the taste buds.
Just three seasonal ingredients are simply combined with good olive oil and sea salt so that their natural flavours can excite the palate.
This salad offers the opportunity to step out of the supermarket with its bland and well-travelled produce to visit the farmers market, grow basil and tomatoes in your own back yard or on a balcony and experiment with the fuller flavours of heritage varieties of common fruits and vegetables.
This recipe and seasonal eating in general is an opportunity to take one tiny step in healing the disconnect from our ecosystem we experience in our modern lives.
In the modern world we inhabit, many of us are separated from nature and the ecosystem in which we live. This divide from nature around us impacts our health in very real and measurable ways.
There are numerous studies that explain how intricately we are intertwined with our environment.
When we get outside into morning sunlight we sleep better at night as morning sunlight resets our brains for bedtime and increases the amount of melatonin, sleep hormone, we produce.
There is evidence to suggest that women who enjoy more green spaces in their environment experience reduced stress and better health outcomes including lower blood pressure and that the absence of green spaces around us increases the stress hormone cortisol in our bodies. The impact of green spaces around us is greater on womens bodies than on mens.
Research goes as far as to explicitly demonstrate that women who live near green spaces are less likely to suffer the symptoms of PMS including better sleep, less breast pain and bloating and reduced incidence of depression.
In a study of families who garden and eat their own produce at least once a week and families who don’t, gardening families were found to have significantly more diversity in their microbiome during gardening season and to consume greater amounts of fibre, vitamin C and the antioxidant selenium.
From the study:
’Changes in gut microbiota composition in urbanized regions have been linked to the rise of inflammatory and non-communicable diseases37. Evidence suggests that fibrous diets22 and environmental interactions38 can increase exposure to beneficial bacteria and potentially mediate this disease prevalence. Gardening remains the primary source of soil contact in the modern era and provides access to fibrous fruits and vegetables.’ It is clear that humans are primed to interact with the soil microbiome and our environment in order to create optimum health in the body.
Even just standing barefoot on the earth or ‘grounding’ has been shown to reduce pain, cortisol levels and inflammation in our bodies and can reduce the electronic pollution that comes from an office cubical environment and a wireless connected world. (Turns out the hippies were right!)
In a world where we are disconnected from nature, overworked, cubical based and stressed. This recipe is a plea to step away from the hand sanitizer, get your hands dirty and grow your own tomatoes, nurture a pot of basil on your window ledge and interact through seasonal foods with the ecosystem of which we are a part. Your health depends on it!
Ingredients
2 large hands full of ripe cherry tomatoes (about 2 cups) halved
1 very ripe nectarine
1 large pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup chopped basil
2 tbsp olive oil to drizzle
Sharp cheese, feta cheese or burrata
Instructions
Slice the ripe cherry tomatoes in half and pile into a bowl.
Cut the nectarine in half and then dice into cubes and add to the bowl.
Sprinkle the tomatoes and nectarine with sea salt to get the juices running
Drizzle with good quality olive oil
Chop or tear up the basil and sir into the fruits and oil
Serve at room temperature to let the flavours shine. Pair with with sharp cheese, combine with cubes of feta cheese or pile the salad around a fresh burrata cheese on a plate.