Welcome to July, National Blueberry Month.
Florida grows magnificent blueberries, and we get them early. I’m eating the last gasp of goodness from our season, which peaks in May (yeah, we do things differently here). But my friends around the country and abroad are just entering blueberry prime time. I hope you are, too. Blueberries are :
low in calories
high in fiber
low glycemic
crazy-rich in antioxidants
high in vitamin A, to give your skin a healthy glow
high in vitamin C to keep you system strong
inflammatory (and honey, with this off-the-charts summer heat, we’re all at risk of inflammation)
and a bunch of other fine things, but I eat blueberries till my tongue turns blue because they taste good — juicy, sweet, and mildly floral. Though they have fiber (along with a trace amount of protein, that thing some people still think vegans don’t get), you can stuff yourself with blueberries without feeling stuffed. Speaking from experience here.
Blueberries are one of a very few true Native American species. If you love blueberries as I do, you must love bees. Blueberries depend on bees and other pollinators. No bees, no berries (and ahem no chocolate).
Blueberries are the joy of summer, but if you do it right, blueberries can keep going well beyond the season. Native Americans, who prized them for their flavor, sustenance, and healing properties worked together to sun-dry them, so the berries could keep through the winter when food sources were scarce. Blueberries also freeze beautifully. What I can’t eat right now will end up in my freezer for later. But enjoy the moment. During National Blueberry Month, they’re ripe, fresh, blue, and fabulous.
You know what else is blue and fabulous? Our planet. Just look at this enduring image of Earth. Viewed from space, the Earth is like a blueberry, “tiny and fragile and precious and finite.”
About that finite thing. The bee population along with that of other pollinators has been in steady decline. Why? Same thing that’s driving climate change. Us. Human activity is driving both climate change and habitat loss.
We have the power to make things better, to preserve the Earth. We can protect our pollinators. We can make their world (and ours) more welcoming and more enduring.
In my book, Feeding the Hungry Ghost, I write, “Both the planet and you are miracles, superior in form and function to anything we mere mortals have dreamed up. Both maintain a complex series of operation systems and usually maintain them so effortlessly, we don’t even notice. Okay, one of us is much, much larger than the other, so much as to make you feel insignificant at times. Don’t be fooled. You are madly significant. The fate of the whole world depends on you, including what you eat for dinner.”
Eat blueberries.
You know I’m always eager to get you to eat greens, and I would not object to a handful of blueberries in a spinach salad, but really, why fight blueberries’ natural sweetness? I’m going blue on you, blue and sweet with this roundup of blueberry recipes. Because a blueberry cinnamon bagel is just wrong.
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blueberry slump — Truly easier than pie, and so fast, fabulous and foolproof, Rouxbe vegan pastry instructor Fran Costigan includes the recipe as part of her curriculum.
Cheers to blueberries with Blue Monday from my friend and mixology maven @tracey.broussard. Paid subscribers will find the recipe below.
See? Going blue is good for you.
July 1 Canada Day
July 4 Independence Day
July 14 Bastille Day
August regional blueberry festivals
South Haven Michigan one of the nation’s oldest blueberry festivals
Marshall County Illinois’s 58th annual Blueberrry Festival