vitamin C

September is often the time to reminisce on summer enjoyed and a fall to come; it’s that transitional month where kids are going back to school, schedules are picking back up, and the summer heat is finally beginning to dissipate. While you might not associate September with the best of what the garden has to offer, in many ways it’s actually the prime month for seasonal foods. Here are five surprising seasonal foods you should be trying now (and what, exactly, you should do with them). Happy eating!

You may not have seen it in the produce aisle yet, but jackfruit is trending: At the end of 2016, Pinterest predicted this Asian fruit would be the biggest food trend of 2017, based on a 420% increase in interest among Pinterest users. Especially if you’re vegetarian or vegan, jackfruit is a multifaceted powerhouse you’ll want to familiarize yourself with.

I know how annoying acne can be. In fact, it can be downright depressing. Really bad acne can make you want to stay home all day and make you feel like everyone is looking at your skin. Recently, I have been dealing with terrible breakouts, which is uncommon for me. While I've always had acne, it has recently gotten a lot worse. I have a sneaking suspicion as to why: I tried to cure it topically and it wound up backfiring in my face (literally).

As a writer, and as a health enthusiast, I have learned about a great many supplements, treatments, and healing modalities in my lifetime.

The nasturtium is a member of the mustard family known as Brassicaceae, which contains five species. It is native to South America and brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors at the end of the 15th century. By the 17th century, Dutch and Spanish herbalists began developing another species and shared the seeds with British and other European botanists.

Every season is amazing, but summer is my favorite by far. That's probably because there's so much that grows in the summer, especially fruit! Out of all the seasons, summer hosts the most fruit and I cannot get enough of their juicy goodness. Just pop by any farmers market and you will see exactly what I mean.

The pansy is a member of the genus Viola – it is closely related to the violet and of the species Viola tricolor. Its common name is derived from the French word “pensée” meaning “thought” because the petals of the flower can resemble a human face that nods downward in contemplation.

Triphala is a traditional Ayurvedic herbal formulation consisting of three fruits native to the Indian subcontinent: Amalaki (Emblica officinalis), Bibhitaki (Terminalia belerica) and Haritaki (Terminalia chebula). Triphala translates literally to mean “three fruits,” and comes from combining the Sanskrit words “tri” meaning three, “phala” meaning fruit and “churcha,” which means powder.

Summer is in full swing and so are the squash plants in the garden. By now, most of us have an abundance of summer squash and all of our neighbors and friends have loads of squash as well.

What to do with all of the lovely summer squash fruit?

One way to utilize squash is to harvest and eat the flowers! Squash blossoms, generally used from the zucchini plant, are a delicacy that has been cooked for centuries by many different cultures. 

The Jerusalem artichoke is neither an artichoke nor has it any connection to Jerusalem. It is the tuber at the root of a flowering plant of the aster family and is native to North America. The flower is similar to the sunflower and the tuber, much like that of ginger, with a texture of a potato. In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh came upon the plant cultivated by the area peoples of Virginia.