It’s easy to forget that produce is only really supposed to grow during certain seasons — partly because most fruits and veggies are available in supermarkets at any given moment, and partly because a lot of us play way too much Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Well, some of us play too much ACNL. Mostly me. I’m looking at me here.
If you’re looking to get more (and tastier) fruit for your buck, though, then you can do a lot worse than RipeTrack. While not necessarily a new or novel concept, the site uses a very easy-to-understand color-coded scale of ripeness for pretty much every produce item you can think of — including dandelion greens, which are apparently a thing that people eat on the regular. You can check what’s currently in season, or you can search for individual fruits and vegetables to check yourself when you have a particular craving.
Hovering your mouse over each graph also breaks it down by month, so you know exactly when’s the best time to buy all of your… well, thyme.
Get it? Because… oh, you get it.
There are a lot of reasons to try and incorporate more produce into your diet during its peak season. Because it’s easier to grow during this time, you won’t have to pay as much due to its relative abundance. It’s also easier to get locally grown foods when you stick to seasonal trends, which can be better for the environment and for local economies. Plus, it just tastes better. Ever try a strawberry that was grown in December? Most of the time, it kinda sucks.
Speaking of which, if there’s one fault we can find with Ripetrack, it’s that their name sounds way too similar to the popular website Rifftrax. Perhaps there are some crossover opportunities to be had? Hey, if Kevin Murphy, Michael J. Nelson, and Bill Corbett can make fun of mantis shrimp for an hour, they can come up with some good material about rhubarb. We have every confidence in them as joke writers.
(via Lifehacker, image via RipeTrack)
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