The wonderful variety of fresh fruits available at the farmers markets in the summer and fall are a distant memory now but that is no excuse for eating less fruit during the winter months.

To get enough fruit in your daily diet without breaking your food budget requires some changes in the fruits you buy when local fruits are not available.

Fresh fruits such as bananas, apples and kiwis are a good buy any time of year (local apples still are available from orchards with cold storage facilities).

Citrus fruits, such as oranges, grapefruits and tangerines, are in season now. Most other fresh fruits are more expensive in the winter months because they are shipped from south of the equator.

If you are trying to maximize your food dollars, wait for summer to buy fresh peaches, nectarines, plums and melons.

During the winter, you may want to add variety to your fruit selection with frozen, dried and canned fruits (preferably with no added sugar or in light syrup).

Dried and canned fruits have these advantages over fresh fruit:

#&149; Easy to carry in a backpack or keep in a drawer at work for a quick snack

#&149; Do not spoil or get overripe the way fresh fruit does

#&149; Do not require peeling or other preparation before eating

With a combination of fresh, frozen, canned and dried fruits, you should be able to get the recommended 2 cups of fruit a day. The following plan shows how:

Breakfast: Slice banana on dry cereal, add raisins or frozen berries to cooked cereal, top pancakes or waffles with berries or eat a grapefruit half

Lunch: Include an apple, orange, tangerine or banana or stir fruit into yogurt

Afternoon Snack: Open up a single serving container of canned fruit or apple sauce or a package of raisins or dried plums

Dinner: Add mandarin oranges or dried cranberries to a salad, have ambrosia or fruit compote, top angel food cake with a fruit puree or serve pudding with frozen strawberries (thawed)

Evening Snack: Make a smoothie with milk and frozen fruit or dip apple slices in flavored lowfat yogurt

To equal 1 cup of fruit, you need to eat: 1 large banana, 1 small apple, 1 large orange, 1 medium pear, 2 large plums or 8 large strawberries.

Tip of the week: Make most of your fruit choices whole fruits, not juices. Juice (even when it says “extra pulp”) does not provide as much fiber as whole fruit.

Christine Gutelius, MA, RD, CDN, is a nutrition resource

educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County