Our bodies have evolved with fruit over thousands of years. Eating fruit seasonally and locally helps our bodies adjust to an optimal state for the current season. Here is a guide to how to eat fruit seasonally in New England.

Allergies and spring go together but this year is a particularly bad allergy season. While antihistamines (Claritin and Zyrtec) provide reasonable solutions for some people, many of us drowsy, foggy or discombobulated on these meds. Patients ask Zanjabee practitioners for natural remedies. Here are some suggestions:

For garden variety allergies:

1. A tsp of local organic honey in a glass of hot water first thing in the morning. This presents the allergy causing pollen to the body in a different form and is very useful in allergy control. Start at least 2 weeks prior to the spring thaw and make sure that you get honey from this year as soon as it is available to match up the pollen that your eyes and nose are being exposed to.
2. Turmeric milk: Warm ½ a cup of milk and add a tsp of turmeric. Stir thoroughly and drink the golden milk. Start a week before spring thaw and drink to the end of allergy season. If dairy is an issue, you can use almond milk.
3. Apply white sesame oil with a dropper or Q tip to the inside of your nostrils. This forms a physical barrier against pollen getting access to your nose. Start as soon as allergies start bothering you.

If your allergies are severe:

1. Add an antihistamine may help. Finding the right antihistamine is an art that Dr. Ali can help you with.
2. Acupuncture treatments to adjust immune system are very effective.
3. If you have skin allergies in addition to the eyes and nose allergies, Ayurveda consultation to adjust your diet, a seasonal regimen and herbs is very useful.

Allergy testing is a very imprecise science at this stage and adds very little to treatment of allergies.

1. Drink a glass of warm water with a tea spoon of honey and a twist of lemon first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Warm water in the morning is especially good for elimination and helps you wake up gently.
2. Switch to  drinking room temperature or warm water for a couple of days and notice the difference it makes in how you feel. Ice cold water is not good for teeth or digestive health.
3. Soda is evil. There is no way around this fact.  It is bad for the teeth. It leaches calcium from the bones since it has phosphates in it. It spikes up blood sugar setting the stage for weight gain.
4. Diet soda is worse for weight management than regular soda in case you were wondering.
5. Eat the fruit rather than having the fruit juice. Fruit juice has the same impact on blood sugar as soda.

Very few exercises are truly aerobic.

1. Brisk walking
2. Running
3. Elliptical
4. Stair master and
5. Cross country skiing are all truly aerobic.
6. Swimming and bicycling are somewhat aerobic but not ideal since we do not carry the full weight of our bodies. The water and bike buffer our weight.

High Intensity Intervals (HII)  are the quickest way to get aerobically fit and are great for both cardiovascular and mental health. Here is how to do HII. Say walking is the aerobic exercise of your choice.

1. Warm up for 3 minutes.
2. Now go all out; walking as fast as you can for 30 secs.
3. Now walk at an easy but not slow pace for 3 minutes.
4. Again walk as fast as you can for 30 secs.
5. Repeat the above intervals until you have completed 4 “As fast as you can” intervals.
6. Cool down at an easy pace for 3 minutes.
7. The whole workout takes 17 minutes.
8. Do not walk fast for longer than 30 secs otherwise you will start pacing yourself but in those 30 secs give it all you have.
9. Go as fast as you possibly can. You should be gasping towards the end of that 30 sec period and the 4th interval should be significantly harder than the first one. If it is not, you are not pushing yourself hard enough during the fast intervals.

Here are the twelve fruits and vegetables you should always eat organic:

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Strawberries
4. Peaches
5. Spinach
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes
8. Sweet Bell Peppers
9. Potatoes
10. Blueberries

Nutritional Sense

Yet another New England summer invites our senses to awaken. Leaving behind distant memories of winter hibernation, we emerge from our homes to allow the sun to touch our skin. Maybe we uncover our beach chairs, dust off our bikes, or loyally tune back into the rhythms of baseball. For many of us, the rituals of this sacred season are not complete without the sweet taste of ripe berries or the unforgettable aroma of vine-ripened tomatoes.

Farmers markets now pepper the city, temporarily transforming parking lots into miniature festivals. Streams of shoppers move through vibrant mosaics of organic colors and textures. Some choose to frequent the markets in order to reconnect with a sense of community. Others look forward to the mystery of the latest harvest. Regardless of why, more and more people are choosing to frequent these vegetal meccas. As a practitioner of holistic medicine, I see this shift as sign that our urban communities are returning to our senses. Each of us is born with an inherent wisdom, capable of guiding us towards personal wellness. Perhaps, it is that same wisdom that is guiding our consumers back to the most fundamental sources of vital energy: locally grown, organic food.

In the last few decades our culture has disrupted our age-old culinary traditions. Family recipes have been replaced with boxed meals and the convenience of eating-out. A simple walk through the aisles of your local supermarket demonstrates a movement away from the essential nature of our food. Food products tucked behind layers of packaging, dressed in chemically generated colors, and drowned out by the volume of marketing slogans confuse our senses. We are now often asked to judge the quality of our food by the percentages and health claims on labels rather than through the wisdom of our eyes, noses, and hands.

I invite you to immerse yourself in the sensory pleasures of nourishing your body through timeless traditions:

• Make one trip to a farmer’s market or farm stand this week.
• Discover a recipe for a vegetable that is entirely novel to you: celeriac, kohlrabi, swiss chard.
• Experiment with a new whole grain: brown rice, quinoa, grano, bulger.
• Listen to your senses: Eat slowly and allow yourself to really taste the layers of flavor. Pay attention to how foods make you feel.

Many of us lead busy lives that seem to demand meals on the go. But by investing a little extra time and thought into our habitual routines, we invest in our sense of satisfaction and in our health. Food is the original medicine.

In order to find farmer’s markets near you, visit here.