I have been an avid fan of sweetgreen ever since their first store popped up in the Flatiron District of New York City a few years back. I love their focus on working with local farms, the fact that they change the menu seasonally, and their efforts to support the local community and give back through their sweetgreen in Schools Program. They've made eating your greens trendy. Through their seasonally evolving menu and their diverse and creative ingredients, getting your crunch on is made seamless. I had the opportunity to go behind the greens at my local sweetgreen to learn how each store is scratch cooking, cleaning, prepping, and blending up all of the ingredients that go into your favorite salads.

Eating seasonally is no new concept. As Michael Pollan states in his Food Rules, "eat like your great-grandmother". Eat food with ingredients that you can pronounce which are sourced nearby and which are in tandem with the season. Your body naturally craves heartier and more filling foods in the winter to acclimate your system to the temperature. This doesn't have to mean rich and calorically dense foods, but rather dark leafy greens, cabbage, squash, and sweet potatoes. Vegetables that are part of nature's winter offerings, and vegetables that are highlighted on the sweetgreen winter menu. When you give your body what it craves and eat with the seasons, you become in tune with nature's rhythms.

To get into nature's groove, each sweetgreen adjusts their menu accordingly as well as preps all of their ingredients at each outpost to provide you with the freshest and most nutrient dense salad experience possible. During my visit, I observed steelhead, a fish similar to salmon, being roasted, dressings blending, falafel balls baking, and lots of cleaning and chopping of fresh local ingredients.