Usually I try to highlight a locally grown food for the Food of the Month column. However, there are many of us (myself included) who aren’t able to limit their diets to locally available foods, so this month I am breaking from tradition to acknowledge a healthy fruit (albeit not growing locally) which is readily available this time of year: the mandarin orange. Available at grocers’ around town in small boxes, these little orange bundles of vitamin C make it easy to quickly boost our fruit intake. They are great for quick snacking – you don’t even have to find a place to wash them!
I love my family’s tradition of including mandarin oranges in holiday stockings. I also love the box of mandarin oranges on my counter, beckoning me to grab one as I run out the door.
Mandarin oranges are high in vitamin A, vitamin C, folate and fiber. Eating two oranges a day will help most people meet their daily vitamin C requirements.
If you have a box of mandarin oranges and you need to incorporate more of them into your meals to avoid spoilage, consider including oranges in your meals. Here are a few recipes to try:
Every month, the Healthy UBC Blog highlights a locally available food, and gives you a recipe or two to try out. This month, read all about mandarin oranges, rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, fibre and folate.
It would be great if this blog could be updated more regularly. I followed a link here to sign up for an upcoming workshop only to find that the site hasn’t been updated since December!