July brings much to look forward to: glorious sunshine, the postponed Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, international chocolate day and a vast array of delicious UK grown pick your own fruit and vegetables.

Artichokes, Beetroot, Blackberries, Black currants, Broad Beans, Broccoli, Cabbages, Carrots, Cauliflowers, Cherries, Courgettes, French Beans, Gooseberries, Kale, Loganberries, Mange Tout, Marrows, Peas, Potatoes, Radishes, Raspberries, Red Currants, Rhubarb, Runner Beans, Spinach, Strawberries, mange tout, Tayberries, Tomatoes are all ready for harvest in the UK in July.

I can’t recommend eating locally sourced fruit and vegetables highly enough – it provides environmental, social, and economic benefits as well as the health benefits.

Locally grown food provides several benefits:

It’s Often Pesticide Free: Many local food producers choose to use organic and natural pest repellants to preserve the health of the food they distribute. Foods produced by large-scale agricultural operations are often mass sprayed with pesticides.

It’s Preservative Free: Locally grown food doesn’t require long trips to be transported across the country until they reach their final destination. For this reason, food doesn’t need to have any preservatives and other chemicals added to it in order to keep it fresh during transit.

It Offers Improved Nutrition: Eating locally grown food can help deliver a high-nutrient content. This is for a number of reasons, which includes the lack of chemicals as well as greater freshness. Local food is also a better way to ensure you eat seasonally. When you eat food that is grown within its natural season, the flavors are much fuller and it tastes better.

It Supports Diet-Related Conditions: For people with food sensitivities to preservatives, hormones or other food chemicals, locally grown food is a great option. Locally grown food can help support any possible digestion issues that people with food allergies may experience with other types of food.

It Encourages Eating a Well-Balanced Diet: When you choose to buy locally grown food, you can incorporate more healthy proteins, fruits, vegetables and whole grains into your diet, as opposed to choosing processed and packaged foods that don’t provide a balanced diet.

It Improves Food Safety: Food safety is another growing concern, especially for families with young children and seniors. Food safety refers to a food’s level of contamination risk. With imported food, it can pass through several different hands before it reaches your kitchen, increasing the chance of contamination.

The more steps between you and your food supply, the greater the risk of food contamination. Buying directly from local producers reduces the risk of eating unsafe food.

The first International Chocolate Day was celebrated in 2009. The day is celebrated on July 7th because it was on this date in 1550 that chocolate was first brought to Europe. The old saying of everything in moderation is true when it comes to chocolate. Dark chocolate is the safest bet as opposed the much higher sugar alternative varieties, and can even provide some health benefits. If you buy quality dark chocolate with a high cocoa content, then it is actually quite nutritious. Quality dark chocolate is rich in fibre, iron, magnesium, copper, manganese and a few other minerals. However, it is best limited in quantity as it is still quite calorific. Cocoa and dark chocolate have a wide variety of powerful antioxidants. In fact, they have way more than most other foods. The bioactive compounds in cocoa may improve blood flow in the arteries and cause a small but statistically significant decrease in blood pressure. Dark chocolate improves several important risk factors for disease. It lowers the susceptibility of LDL to oxidative damage while increasing HDL and improving insulin sensitivity. Studies have even shown a reduction in heart disease of those who ate quality dark chocolate 5 times a week. Studies show that the flavanols from cocoa can improve blood flow to the skin and protect it from sun damage. So, a square of high percentage cocoa, dark chocolate may actually provide some health benefits buts this certainly cannot be said for the other varieties of chocolate so please choose wisely. Stick to dark and enjoy in moderation in the comfort that it may actually be doing you some good. Enjoy!

The 31st July is Harry Potters birthday, so let me wish you all a wizardry July 2021 full of health and happiness. Enjoy the Olympics and be inspired by our amazing athelets. Best wishes, Dianne

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