Spring is the beginning of salad season

Spring is the time of year I start wanting to eat more fruits and salads. Winter is usually about comfort foods and keeping warm. Yes, I try to eat healthy during winter, but it seem so much easier to eat fruits and salads, and just plain lighter, in spring and summer. Salads sprinkled with fresh lemon juice, or a teaspoon of olive oil, and there you have a quick, easy meal. Salads aren't a requirement. Many of these can be cooked. I just find it easier to eat healthy salads in the spring.

So I did some research to find out what fruits and vegetables are at their peak this time of year. I'm sure I've left some off this list, and there are some I don't even know what they are (Fiddlehead Fern sounds like something my black thumb would kill). But, what a great way to find some new foods to try.

Apricots
Artichoke
Argula
Asparagus
Avocado
Beets
Blueberries
Boysenberries
Broccoli
Broccoli Raab
Cardoons
Carrots
Chard
Cherries
Celeriac
Chives
Corn
Fava Beans
Fennel
Fiddlehead Ferns
Garlic
Grapefruit
Greens (Mustard, Collard, Baby Lettuce Mixes, Dandelion, Spinach)
Lemons
Loganberries
Mangos
Morels
New Potatoes
Peas
Pineapple
Plums
Radishes
Raspberries
Rhubarb
Sorrel
Spinach
Strawberries
Turnips
Vidalia Onions
Watercress
Watermelon
Zucchini

You can lose some of the fat in Chocolate Dipped Strawberries by using fat free milk and omit the butter. Just remember, moderation. Eating a few is a delicious treat. Eat a pound, and you will regret it and hate yourself after they're gone.

Many of the foods can be found in supermarkets. However, farmers markets are a wonderful way to support your local merchants and buy fresh and flavorful foods. Find a farmer's market in your hometown, by checking out Local Harvest.

Eating fresh produce gets me away from prepared foods. There is so much sodium in prepared foods. I can't begin to say how important reading the nutritional labels are. According to the FDA, we should stay under 2400 mg of sodium a day. Even when I'm eating what I consider the healthy, and losing weight, I have many days where I'm over the 2400.

Which is why drinking water is very important. On a good day, I can drink 160 oz. of water while at work. And, at least another 64 oz when I get home. Water is good for flushing out the toxins in your body. So, if I'm having a few days over that 2400 mark, I don't sweat it.

Its definitely something to pay attention to.