Our Top 5 Fall Foods — And the Ones We Think Are Overrated
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No clinical debate this week, no myth to debunk — just David and Dr. Lara Baatenburg working through their favorite foods of the season, and discovering along the way that they agree on almost everything except apple cider.
The conversation started with a simple idea: eating seasonally is fun, and there's real variety to be gained from paying attention to what's actually in season where you live. It didn't take long for that idea to turn into something else entirely — a runaway garden vegetable, a shared soft spot for pumpkin bars, and David quietly deciding he'd been personally attacked by a comment about micronutrient variety.
Chili: not seasonal, but nobody's complaining
Both hosts landed on chili independently, which says something. David eats it year-round — a pot of lean beef, beans, and legumes checks every box he cares about: protein, fiber, a satisfying macro profile without excess fat. Dr. Lara agrees on the nutrition case but draws a line at summer, when a hot bowl of anything just feels wrong. Either way, chili earns its place as a full, adaptable meal that scales from simple to indulgent depending on what goes on top.
Pumpkin baked goods, and the sugar count nobody wants to know
Pumpkin bars go back to one of the earlier moments in their relationship — a batch made together, tied to an early experiment with nightly indulgence and sustainable weight loss. Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin scones, pumpkin anything — the appeal is obvious, and canned pumpkin puree means there's no actual reason it has to wait for fall except tradition.
What did surprise David was watching how much sugar a recipe like that actually calls for. Baking something yourself has a way of making the ingredient list impossible to ignore — not a reason to avoid it, just a level of awareness that's easy to skip when someone else made it.
Fresh apples, farmers market loyalty, and one lucky orchard find
Apples make both lists, and for good reason. Michigan apples in season — Honeycrisp especially — are simply a different product than what's available most of the year, when storage time and distance from harvest quietly degrade flavor and crispness. David and Dr. Lara picked one straight off the ground at an orchard-adjacent golf course last week and ate it on the spot; even an unremarkable variety tasted better for the context.
The Fulton Street Farmers Market has become a genuine weekly habit — enough of one that a longtime vendor noticed when Dr. Lara's sister stopped showing up as regularly after getting married and moving. That kind of recognition is part of the draw: knowing the people who actually grew the food, and paying them directly for the work.
Roasted root vegetables — an honorable mention that became a full case
Butternut squash, beets, parsnips, carrots — caramelized with maple syrup and roasted until the edges char slightly. Dr. Lara made a version for Thanksgiving once that nobody touched, mostly because half the family had never encountered a parsnip and wasn't in an adventurous mood. Their loss, by her account.
Not every fall food earns unanimous enthusiasm, though. Apple cider — specifically the warm, cider-shop kind everyone seems to romanticize — gets a shrug from both of them. It's not dislike, just indifference: pleasant enough, not worth going out of the way for, essentially warm apple-flavored sugar water. The donuts, on the other hand, remain uncontested.
Pie, cobbler, and a peach story worth telling
Cobbler wins out over pie for David, and peach wins out over apple — ideally with vanilla ice cream involved. That preference led into an unexpected detour: Dr. Lara's mother did Civil War reenacting for years, and the group's designated baker made peach pie from scratch over an open campfire in a Dutch oven — full double crust, no thermostat, no oven door to check. The degree of difficulty involved in getting that right, by feel alone, over live flame, is not something either of them takes for granted.
A butternut squash plant that will not be contained
This year's garden getting away from them turned out to be the highlight. A single butternut squash plant — a gift from Dr. Jana rather than something deliberately planted — has vined its way out of the garden bed, through the fence, and into the middle of the lawn, producing squash in places nobody intended. It's also functioned as an accidental, highly effective form of weed control, since nothing else had room to grow underneath it.
The current haul: more free butternut squash than either of them expected, headed toward roasted preparations, a salad with goat cheese and candied walnuts, and — for David, purely on nostalgia — a callback to the butternut squash soup he used to order regularly from Panera.
Pot roast, and the great vegetables-in-or-out debate
Both households had a standing pot roast tradition, and both did it completely differently. David's family cooked vegetables directly into the pot — carrots, celery, green peppers, later swapped from Dutch oven to slow cooker. Dr. Lara's family, despite raising two daughters who love vegetables, never put a single one in the pot; her preference to this day is vegetables served on the side, since anything simmered that long in with the meat just ends up tasting like the meat.
Neither approach is wrong. It's a genuinely regional, generational habit — a Sunday-after-church staple in a lot of West Michigan households, made exactly one family's way for years without much reason to question it.
The actual point
Nothing here is about optimizing anything. Eating seasonally is a source of variety and genuine enjoyment — fresh produce that actually tastes different depending on the time of year, a reason to try a root vegetable you'd otherwise skip, an excuse to make something with a friend. A pumpkin bar doesn't undo a diet, and a preference for peach over apple doesn't require justification. The through-line across every item on both lists: eat a wide range of real food, enjoy the version of it that's actually good right now, and don't overthink the rest.
Vitals & Values is the podcast of Concierge Medicine of West Michigan, hosted by Dr. David Roden and Dr. Lara Baatenburg. New episodes available wherever you listen.
Curious what a doctor's office feels like when nobody's rushing you out the door? Schedule a complimentary Meet & Greet with Dr. Lara or Dr. Jana Baatenburg and see what concierge care is really like.
