Seasonal & Local Ingredients

There are members from all over the world utilizing the Blue Zones Meal Planner to eat plant-based! Our members are always experiencing different seasons and have varying access to items depending on where in the world they’re joining us from, so we’re thrilled to offer each member the ability to customize their own accounts to find recipes that work for them.

We absolutely encourage eating seasonally and locally for both its mitigated environmental impact on growing and transporting food, as well as supporting local economies. Plus, it’s fun! Whether you grow your own food, enjoy browsing a farmers’ market, or pay attention to the origin of your foods at the grocery store, these tips are for you.

• Search by what’s in season: You can also use your recipe search engine to find recipes by ingredient, flavor, cuisine type, meal type, and cook time! This is another great way to find recipes based on which ingredients are easily available to you at the time - if you have a bunch of zucchini from a backyard garden, for example, just search 'zucchini' to find all our recipes that include that ingredient. (Just note that when using the search feature, the results are not personalized as it searches our entire recipe database).

• Make a swap: See a recipe that calls for a summer ingredient like zucchini, but you have fall-flourishing delicata squash instead? Just use your ingredient instead! Feel free to reach out to our food coaches if you’re wondering how an ingredient will do in a particular dish.

• Filter out ingredients that aren’t in season: Make use of your Allergies & Dislikes tool to filter out any ingredients that you may not have access to during a particular season, wherever you are! You can update your Preferences as often as you’d like, to add or remove certain ingredients based on seasonality.