Don't be fooled by the Eggland's Best egg carton. The local farmer reuses these cartons for their eggs. I actually had a bit more produce than this. All organic, local and all at only $5.
Only ONE woman runs the market--she is the gardener, marketer, financier and cook. Yes, she actually cooks things and sells them at the market, as well. She even makes green drinks, full of kale, pineapple and other greens. One woman I met at the market swears by them, and says they are absolutely delicious. They sure do sound alkalizing!
The reason why I believe farmer's markets are important is because it gets people in touch back to our roots of food. Before we had supermarkets that shipped avocados all the way from Brazil, or lettuce from Mexico, we ate locally grown, "organic" food. This food contained more nutrients due to the less storage time and virtually no shipping, allowing one to eat "fresh from the farm".
We still have access to this type of food, but we have to look for it. The farmer's market I found is held in my local health food store. Isn't that cool? Find a local health food store and ask whether or not they know of any farmer's in the area that are selling their produce. You want to go preferably organic, but local is the name of the game.
The prices of local organic produce is often times much less than what you will find at your typical supermarket, as well. Lucy, the gardener who sells her produce at my health food store, sells large organic zucchini's for 4/$1. That is SO much less than any conventional store I have been in. A large bag of organic kale? $2. It's incredible at the deals you can find.
In fact, when I went, I took just a $5 bill, expecting to only buy some squash, and maybe anything else my Abe could get for me. Not only did I get some pretty good looking zucchini and yellow squash, but I received a large bag of Kale. I had $1 left over and I asked Lucy in a sort of joking way, "Is there anything I can get for $1?" She looked around, headed toward the tomatoes ($1.89 per pound), weight one, and put it into my bag. Then she grabbed two handfuls of cherry tomatoes and placed them in as well. So sweet of her!
This experience has really inspired me to start my own garden ASAP. I did a little gardening before, but didn't really invest too much into (and likewise didn't receive much out of it, either). I'm ordering seeds as I type, and am looking at ways to build a good organic soil. Does anyone know a method of doing this? I want to use the dirt in the backyard, but do I need to add compost, peat, moss, manure, etc? I live in zone 9, I believe, if that helps.
So, if you are looking for a farmers market near you, please go to Local Harvest. This website will let you type in your zip code and will pull up local market's near you. I haven't yet sought out local, free range meat yet, but you can find those listings over at Eat Wild.
Happy foraging everyone!
This is The Healthy Advocate.
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