September plates that do not fight the season

The mornings are still cold and windy. A cold smoothie at 6am before a windy walk leaves most people under-fuelled and shivering by eight.

Oats with milk, eggs on toast, or last night's leftovers reheated. Warm, savoury, with protein in it. Save the cold breakfast for December.

Spring produce here is green and slightly bitter — rocket, chicory, radish tops, spring onions, artichokes, young spinach, the first peas. It is cheap and it is at its best right now.

Bitterness is not a cleanse. It is simply a set of vegetables worth eating, and they cook in minutes with olive oil, lemon and salt. Add them to the eggs, the pasta or the braai plate.

Most people here train in the morning and eat their protein at night. Spreading it across the day is what protects muscle, especially over forty and especially in anyone losing weight.

A palm of something at each meal: eggs, yoghurt, tinned fish, chicken, beans, lentils. Snoek and sardines are local, cheap and among the better things you can eat.

Soups, roasted vegetables, stews with beans in them — food that suits a cold windy evening without leaving you flat the next morning. Add the fresh green things at the end for texture rather than serving everything raw.

Water is the quiet one. The wind dehydrates people who never feel thirsty because they never feel hot.

Traditional Chinese Medicine reads spring as the season of movement and would say eat lightly cooked, slightly bitter and green, and do not shock a body that is still in winter with cold food. That is offered as tradition, not as treatment, and it lines up neatly with what is in the shops in September. That is the end of the TCM in this article.

Diabetes, kidney disease, pregnancy, coeliac disease and eating disorders all mean general food writing does not apply to you — get individual advice. Unexplained weight loss, ongoing gut symptoms or persistent fatigue need a doctor, not a diet change.