While growing your own food ensures you have regular stocks available and provides fresh ingredients for your meals, it has other benefits that you may not have expected.
Make your health a priority
There’s one important nutrient gardening can give you before you even take a bite of your produce: vitamin D. The sun’s rays promote vitamin D production, which is vital to our health. Working in the garden for only 30 minutes a day can promote better sleep and positive energy. Just remember the sunscreen.
Live the ‘fresh is best’ lifestyle
Nothing beats flavor-and-nutrient-packed power of freshly-picked fruits and vegetables. Once harvested, produce begins to lose moisture and nutrients.
Although the freshness of shop-bought vegetables is largely out of your control, when you’ve grown your own fruits and vegetables, you can know exactly when they’ve been picked and how fresh they are.
Make gardening a family hobby
Gardening is a fun, family-friendly activity that allows kids to get their hands dirty and learn where their food comes from. From planting seedlings to building salads together, starting a vegetable garden is a great way to get your family off the couch and onto their feet.
Control your crops
Growing your own produce lets you control what ends up on your family’s table. You decide what fertilizer, water and pest control to use, as well as whether to grow organic.
Increase healthy fruit and vegetable consumption
Households who grow fruit and veg consume 40% more fruits and vegetables per day than those who do not; those who grow their own are 3.5 times more likely to consume the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables.
Cut down on your food bills
One of the biggest advantages of growing your own food is that it can save you money. The price of a pack of seeds is almost equivalent to what you would pay for a single vegetable or fruit at the shops. Plus, you can grow organic vegetables for a fraction of the cost from those brought from the shops.
Get growing today
If this has inspired you to get out your gardening tools and stock up on seeds, there are plenty of online resources to help you get started:
- Thompson and Morgan’s Top 10 easy-to-grow veg, fruit and salad
- Suttons’ Beginner’s guide to growing your own vegetables
- The RHS’ advice on How to grow your own vegetables
- Polytunnel gardening: Growing tips - which crops can save you the most money?
Nutritional therapy service at Benenden Hospital
If you’re looking for help to change your diet, our team of specialist staff can help. Nutritional therapy can support you to adapt what you eat and drink in order to help you achieve your health and wellbeing goals. Hear more about our Nutritional therapy service from Mrs Abir Hamza-Goodacre.
Nutrition and lifestyle can have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing, so take the first step by calling our Private Patients team on 01580 363158 or filling in our online enquiry form.
Published on 25 April 2020