How to Practice Seasonal Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating is a simple enough practice: It essentially means eating in accordance with the signals of the body. Eat what you crave when you are hungry, just to the point of fullness.

Because of the culture many of us live in, for some, this simple practice has become so challenging that they seek out dietitians who specialize in intuitive eating. This approach to eating would have been the way we consumed food before there were diets or ever-changing social media-fueled beauty standards; we would have eaten for pleasure and survival, and that’s about it.

Many of us have learned to eat with our minds and not our bodies. For some of us, diets have been present since we were children, as we witnessed our parents or other adults around us dieting. Some of us were even put on diets when we were very young. We learn to count calories, categorize foods into good/bad or healthy/unhealthy, and make mental judgments about what we should or shouldn’t be eating. Food has become a very intellectual exercise, and many of us have lost touch with our bodies’ hunger and fullness cues altogether. We may have learned to diet, but we haven’t learned to eat.

Intuitive eating may also feel inaccessible in some communities due to the basic reality of food availability. Processed foods are often much cheaper than whole, organic fruits and vegetables. The food we can get at the grocery store is also available year-round, without a great sense of what’s in season locally in our area. We are so disconnected from the seasons of food in the areas we live in that we’re also disconnected from how our bodies respond to those foods.

In order to eat well and in accordance with our bodies, our minds, our budgets, and our cultures, we need to be realistic about how to eat. Let’s tune into what’s happening for our bodies seasonally and see if that can help us reconnect to what seasonal intuitive eating could feel like. Keep in mind that these are suggestions that are meant to help you listen inwardly to what your body wants and needs, so do your best to listen to that first.

Midsummer

Depending on where you live, midsummer is fruit and berry season. Lots of fruits and vegetables are available and can be eaten and enjoyed fresh and raw. According to Ayurveda, our digestive fire, or agni, is at its height in the hot months (especially at midday). That means we can digest things relatively easily. In Ayurveda, we eat our biggest meals at midday when the agni is higher and eat more lightly in the evening when the agni is lower.

Late Summer and Early Fall

The ancient pagan harvest festivals begin on August 1 with Lughnasadh, which celebrates the harvest of corn and grain as well as the fruits and vegetables that are available during this time. Bread, cakes, corn on the cob, fresh peaches, and other highly available seasonal foods are traditionally enjoyed at this time.

The second harvest festival is at the autumn equinox in September, and this is when we start to include some root vegetables and meat as well (think of the traditional Thanksgiving menu here). As the weather starts to cool, we start to want warmer, cooked foods.

The third of the three harvest festivals is Samhain, which has evolved in the Western world into Halloween. It marks the beginning of the cold season and celebrates the harvest of animals. Traditionally, this was the time for slaughtering animals so they could be cured and preserved to sustain us through the colder season.

According to yogic philosophy, we get our prana, or life force, from sunlight, breath, and food. As there is less sunlight available in the darker time of the year, we may need foods that are more nutrient-dense, warmer, and well-cooked as our agni diminishes. Of course, in India many people are vegetarian, and there are certainly ways to support our life force without consuming animal flesh. But whether you eat meat or not, it becomes more necessary to consume more iron, protein, and fat as the weather turns darker and colder.

Winter

In wintertime, our digestive fire is at its weakest, and the availability of prana from sunlight is scarce, especially because we tend to be indoors for much of this season. This is the season to cozy up, slow down, and eat well-cooked food. Traditionally, we would have had preserved food and root vegetables at this time, and the fire would have been doing a lot of the “digesting” for us. Most cultures have some sort of celebration near the winter solstice that involves gathering around the fire and eating traditional foods. It’s natural to be moving less, sleeping more, and craving more comforting, nutrient-rich foods during the winter. It’s not a time to force yourself to eat cold salads!

Early Spring

Early spring is heralded by Imbolc, the traditional Celtic cross-quarter festival between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, around February 1. The light begins to return around this time, traditionally known as the lambing season. The word imbolc is sometimes translated as “in the belly” or “fire in the belly” and references the pregnant sheep who begin to give birth and produce milk, so this is the season for milk and cheese. For many traditional Indigenous cultures in North America, this is an important time of year. Sap starts to flow from maple trees to be turned into calorie-rich syrup, which historically would have helped to bring energy back after the hungry months of late winter when food stores would have begun to dry up.

In most parts of the world, the early months of spring are encouraging but still cold and wet, or even snowy. We may start to feel more energy coming back into our bodies and a little bit of that digestive fire returning, but we still need some of those warm comfort foods to keep us going as the weather begins to shift.

Late Spring

Late spring is flower season, when we start to see the blooms reappear. The weather warms up and the sun comes back. Early shoots and leaves may have become available around this time just ahead of the berries, including, perhaps, bitter dandelion leaves that would have stimulated the digestive fire, waking us up and preparing us for spring and summer. Green salads, especially bitter greens, are a highlight of this season.

Keep in mind that intuitive eating is just that: intuitive. We have smaller seasons throughout the year: moon cycles, menstrual cycles, and even the cycle of a single day. We may find our cravings changing depending on many factors. Consider the impact of the seasons on the way you feel in your body and what your body is craving as you move through your day-to-day life. Listen to your body, listen to your hunger, pay attention to the world around you, and nourish your body and spirit.

Learn more about the benefits of intuitive eating on the nervous system.