catiefan 2 years, 1 month ago

Perhaps, but it depends on what you're buying. It might help to think about some of the benefits of the Farmer's Market:

1. Your money goes directly to local farmers, not to some mega-corporation like Monsanto. You can actually get to know the people who will be feeding all of us when the corporate food structure collapses.
2. The veggies/fruit/meat you are buying are fresh, healthy, and most often without added chemicals/hormones. You can taste the difference, and you're getting more nutritional bang for your buck.
3. The veggies/fruit/meat you are buying have a very small carbon footprint. They were not trucked across the United States, or the Western Hemisphere, but at the most just across the county.

Worth every penny, I say.

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dogsandcats 2 years, 1 month ago

Oh, I know. But those are all reasons why the prices of local products should be cheaper. Local farmers don't have to pay corporate CEOs, or buy chemicals, or pay high fuel costs for shipping across the country.

Doesn't every person deserve fresh nutritious food? Or only those who can afford to pay a premium for it?

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farmer1 2 years, 1 month ago

I definitely understand not wanting to pay high prices, but I can tell you in all honesty that no farmer at the market is getting rich off of what they sell. You're simply getting products at the true cost of small-scale, locally sourced production. Few, if any, federal subsidies are being paid to those hard working folks.

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Lena 2 years, 1 month ago

You can't forget that a lot of our local farmer try using mostly organic ways of growing and oddly enough It's more expense to grow Organic then to use other chemical based fertilizers and pesticides, And yes even on a small scale there are still different applications you must use in order to grow anything. I have a very small veggie garden and in order to keep it from getting fungus or having other problems I have to use different types of applications to prevent this, So they still have chemical/ organic application costs to maintain their crops. Plus when you buy from the farmers market your getting the items super fresh. The food hasn't been setting on a shelf or truck for days or even weeks, the longer they set the more nutrition they lose on top of the nutrition already loss because of the amount of chemicals they have been treated with. To me its worth the few extra dollars I spend at the farmers market to make sure I'm feeding my family with the best possible ingredients I can find. Please don't think the farmers are trying to sell fruits/veggies/and meats to make a lot of profit they don't make much of a profit at all compared to the amount of money it takes to plant/grow/harvest/ and transport. My aunt and uncle are farmers (unfortunately for me they don’t live close enough to sell at the Lawrence Farmer’s Market) they hardly make enough to keep going, but they keep it up because they know how important it is, and they love feeding their local community. Our Local Farmers need our support.

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Caesar_Augustus 2 years, 1 month ago

I have to respond to #2 of your post. Penn and Teller did a BS episode where they set up a stand outside a store and did the "pepsi challenge" with "organic" vegetables and fruit and "regular" vegetables and fruit.

The testers chose by an overwhelming margin the storebought vegetables and fruit for taste and color/consistency. Now I realize that P & T are comedians and out to entertain first and foremost, but I do believe there is some truth to their show and do not feel that storebought fruits and or vegetables are any less healthy or fresh than locally grown produce. You are not getting any more nutritional bang for you buck buying local vs storebought trucked in produce.

I keep a garden in spring/summer and grow a variety of vegetables so I'm not biased towards store bought produce.

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KansasPerson 2 years, 1 month ago

Emperor: I'd be interested in knowing more about their "challenge." Were the samples visible to the people eating them, or was it a blindfold test? Very often the organic fruits and vegges are not as cosmetically "perfect" as the store-bought produce, and I would be surprised if the appearance didn't factor into the decisions of the judges. Secondly, where did they hold this challenge? Was it somewhere that the stores just generally had better access to fresh stuff (maybe in California)? Thirdly, I find it hard to believe there wasn't a taste difference between fresh locally-grown stuff and the bred-to-ship-a-long-distance food. I have had the occasional good apple from the grocery store, but they are generally harder-skinned and less juicy than their local orchard counterparts. Lastly, I'd like to know what kinds of fruits/veggies they used in their sample. IMO it would be difficult to find a grocery-store tomato that could measure up to a garden tomato. With some other veggies or fruits, maybe the difference would not be as apparent. I've often felt that the BS guys (and similar shows) are hampered by having preconceived notions which may unconsciously affect their set-ups. You often find what you're looking for if you're not stringent with your research design. As you say, it's all for entertainment, but people remember and quote the results as if they're peer-reviewed studies.

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