How to shop at a farmers' market

Shopping at a farmers' market is not the same as shopping at a supermarket. You'll enjoy the experience more and get a lot more out of it -- more than you're expecting, perhaps -- if you keep a few things in mind.

Get in the zone. The farmers' market is not Kroger. Knowing how your food was raised and buying fresher, tastier, sustainably-raised food that supports your local farmers is balanced with some things you might at first see as disadvantages: it takes longer, some items might be more expensive (especially at certain times of year), and you can't always find exactly what you're looking for. But after a while, if you're in the right frame of mind, you'll see that these are actually advantages, too. When you spend more time shopping, you tend to get to know the farmer and the food better. When you pay a fair price for food, you tend to start eating in a way that is sustainable (and healthier.) When you don't find what you were looking for, you tend to broaden your food choices and discover new food items you may not have used before. Shopping the farmers' market is part of an entirely different way of looking at your food, one that allows you to become part of the process rather than simply being the end-consumer.

Show up early. Especially if you're looking for something early or late in its season, as many farmers will run out right away as early birds snap up the less abundant items. Plus lines are likely to be shorter and farmers will be able to spend more time with you talking about their offerings.

Or, come late. Often late in the day is a great time to get deals on stuff the farmers don't want to take home, especially anything more perishable or difficult to transport.

Be prepared to spend some time. This isn't a supermarket where you zip up and down the aisles throwing boxes and cans into your cart. Here, you can ask about the items. The grower or producer of the item knows more about it than you might imagine -- after all, if they're growing it, they're almost certainly eating it. And the people in front of you want to ask some questions, too, so try to be patient.

Accept the seasons. You won't find apples or tomatoes at the farmers' market in May, or asparagus in August. One of the joys of eating locally is that the start of each item's new season is a cause for celebration. In May at the farmers' market, that gorgeous bunch of asparagus was probably in the ground a few miles away last night or maybe even this morning. During asparagus season you can have asparagus every night for a week and not get tired of it because you know you aren't going to see fresh local asparagus again until next year. Come September, an apple that was picked yesterday will spoil you forever for what you can find at the supermarket in June. You may just decide that picked-yesterday-ten-miles-from-here apple is worth waiting for.

Be flexible. If the spinach is all gone, consider kale or chard, which can often be used interchangeably in recipes. No Granny Smiths? Ask the farmer which of his varieties will make a Granny Smith eater happy.

Try something new. At a farmers' market, you'll often see things you'd never see at the supermarket. Pea shoots, garlic scapes, squash blossoms, green garlic, chive blossoms, sorrel -- for the most part these are too perishable or too difficult to transport to show up anywhere but at a farmers' market. Pick up a bunch and ask the farmer, "How do you use this?" He'll be happy to tell you how he likes to prepare it, and he may even have a recipe copied off.

Don't expect perfect beauty. The blemish-free produce at the supermarket was raised in a monoculture, sprayed to kill every possible threat whether present or not, chemically fertilized to encourage growth, and the variety was chosen for beauty and ease of transport, not taste. At the farmers' market you'll find varieties the farmer chose because they grow well in his particular conditions and he thinks they taste good. Most don't spray, or spray only when disease or insects are actually present. Most fertilize only with compost, not with chemicals. The end product doesn't always look exactly like the perfect produce you'll find at the supermarket, but it tastes better and is fresher, better for you, and better for the environment. There's a beauty in that imperfection.

Ask questions. Where is your farm located? Do you grow or raise what you are selling? (If you don't feel comfortable asking a farmer this, ask the market manager whether there are rules about this for farmers at their market -- there often are.) What are your growing methods? Can people visit your farm? Why did you choose to grow a particular variety? What's good today? Do you have any cooking tips? Do you know if anyone else here today might still have some radishes? Will you have tomatoes next week?

Develop relationships. If you visit a market regularly, you'll see the same farmers over and over. Some of them will be happy to save things for you next week if you've become a regular and they know you'll show up. Some farmers change their planting plans in response to requests from regular customers -- one farmer I know has developed a specialty in Japanese vegetables because he's developed relationships with several transplanted families. If you'd love to be able to find a certain item at the farmers' market, tell a farmer! You'll be much more likely to see it in his stall next year if you've developed a relationship with him this year.

Be prepared to pay the true cost of producing your food. It's not a garage sale, where you can expect to pick up stuff cheaper than at retail. Most farmers at farmers' markets are not producing on a large scale. They're not receiving subsidies on their products to help lower the price. They're operating small diversified farms, which is better for the environment. They are trying to do the right thing, but they still need to make a living. You can help by being willing to pay a little more for your food, especially early or late in the season. It tends to balance out in high season for produce. In August and September when everyone has tomatoes coming out their ears, you can buy tomatoes cheap. In late June, not so much. But for certain items -- mostly animal products -- you'll almost always pay a little more at a farmers' market. That's because raising animals on pasture without subsidized grain and water costs more than conventional CAFO'd meat, dairy, and egg operations. Learning the true cost of meat has encouraged my family to treat it as an ingredient rather than as the ingredient in our meals. It's better for us and better for the environment.

Bring a friend. Know a foodie who doesn't shop at the farmers' market? Or maybe just someone who is always saying, "Wow, I really should check out the farmers' markets, too." Offer to take them with you. Last time I took a friend she bought so much food I ended up with a dinner invitation.

Become part of the process. When you shop at a supermarket, you're simply an eater. You have a very limited part in the process of bringing food to your table. When you shop at a farmers' market, you have an opportunity to become part of the process, but only if you take advantage of that opportunity. If you treat the farmers' market like Kroger, you'll probably be disappointed.

This post was featured at Vegetarian Carnival, Carnival of Improving Life, Make It From Scratch, Festival of Frugality, Homesteading Carnival and Carnival of Tips.

Sierra Club video: The True Cost of Food

The Sierra Club is offering The True Cost of Food, a fun animated 15-minute video which can be downloaded from their website* that illustrates the true cost of our food -- what our food would cost if water & farm subsidies, health & environmental costs, and waste were accounted for in the price of our conventionally-produced meat and produce as compared to the cost of producing food sustainably. Definitely worth a viewing, especially for anyone who thinks local, organic food is expensive.

Their recommendations for decreasing the true cost of your food?

• Eat more vegetables, fruit, and grains and less meat. Look for meat that is produced in the least harmful way—grass fed, organic, antibiotic- and hormone-free.
• Buy organic whenever you can.
• Buy from small, local sources whenever you can.

They also offer a discussion guide and further suggestions for decreasing the true cost of your food.

The video would work well for use with kids (maybe eight and up) and would probably work in classrooms.

*The site offers three options for downloading the video, or you can order a copy. If you download it, the high-resolution version is worth the time it takes to download, but plan to start the download, then come back later to view it, as for me the sound didn't show up until I'd completely downloaded the video.

Corn at $6: what does this mean for pasture-raised meat?

Corn hit $6 a bushel last week, up 30% from a year ago and likely to rise higher according to government predictions.

What does this mean for those of us who are choosing pastured meats? I asked the farmers in my area I buy my pastured meats from if skyrocketing corn prices would affect farmers raising 100% grassfed animals.

David Simpkins of the Heirloom Beef Company in Adams County OH says yes:

Absolutely YES! We've seen a lot of acres that have normally been used for hay production being planted to corn. I think hay prices will be pretty high again this year. Not only the price of corn carrying other feeds higher, but the costs of fertilizers that go into hay production have gone through the roof.

Doug Weber of Weber Farms in Amelia OH agrees:

Yes, especially poultry. I supply my birds with a supplemental grain ration as well as pasture. The feed costs are skyrocketing. Hay is going up, corn is going up and gasoline is going up. All will bring about price increases in livestock and produce.

Trudy Mohr of Mohr Animal Acres in Urbana OH adds:

There are many other costs involved that have also increased. I know on my end, our processor has had significantly increased costs which I am trying to keep at minimum to my customers. Also, there are other feed supplements such as hay, mineral and probiotics that we feed to the livestock to maintain health so we do not have to feed antibiotics; all of which have increased in price. Most of these are due to fuel costs not corn costs, but these costs all seem to be tied together these days.

So I guess like industrial meat, prices for pastured meats are also going to be increasing.

I wonder if the silver lining here is that prices increasing to reflect actual costs of raising meat (rather than costs being subsidized by the government) will encourage all of us to treat meat as just another ingredient rather than as the star of the meal? We'll be healthier, and our diets will be more sustainable.

NYT on the coming food crisis: Bad policy & bad luck

There's a great Op-Ed in today's New York Times on the reasons behind the coming food crisis.  Paul Krugman talks about bad policy (the focus on using grains to produce biofuels, the war in Iraq), bad luck (a combination of weather-related factors that have conspired to cut the grain supply worldwide), and a complacency about long-term trends (the increasing tendency of third-world countries to prefer a western, meat-based diet) as the causes of restricted global food supplies.

His conclusion? Cheap food may be a thing of the past.

Increasing industrial food prices could be a good thing for local, sustainable food

Must reading from today's New York Times for anyone interested in local, sustainable eating:

As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.

And if American staples like soda, fast-food hamburgers and frozen dinners don’t seem like such a bargain anymore, the American eating public might turn its attention to ingredients like local fruits and vegetables, and milk and meat from animals that eat grass. It turns out that those foods, already favorites of the critics of industrial food, have also dodged recent price increases.

Higher food costs, [locavores, small growers, activist chefs and others] say, could push pasture-raised milk and meat past its boutique status, make organic food more accessible and spark a national conversation about why inexpensive food is not really such a bargain after all.

Obviously no one would wish increasing food prices to cause true hunger in America, which economist and Pace University professor Robert Parks called a possibility last week in the Christian Science Monitor. But to spark a national debate on the true costs of cheap food? The loss of the dollar burger might be worth it.

What would you do with an unlimited food budget?

Inspired by this comment from Kelly and this one from Jen on a previous post about cooking from scratch, I thought I'd ask:

If you had an unlimited food budget -- that is, you could spend as much as you liked on feeding your family but had to spend it feeding yourselves and couldn't use if for any other purpose no matter how much you'd prefer to give it to charity or save it for a rainy day or buy other things -- how would you eat?

Would you eat nearly every meal in restaurants?

Order pizza or pick up Thai food most nights?

Buy convenience foods because that's what you really prefer?

Shop for the best ingredients and cook most meals from scratch?

Hire a personal chef?

I guess the bottom line is: how does our food budget affect our eating decisions? As food prices continue to increase (and prognostications say it's going to get worse), how will that change our food choices?

For me, my food budget is one of the less important issues in my food choices. That is, it affects the details (Chicken vs. beef? Hamburger vs. steak? Go meatless a few nights a week?) but there are other things I'd cut out before budgetary concerns spurred me to buy cheaper, lower-quality food.

And if I had a truly unlimited food budget? A personal chef sometimes sounds like a tempting idea, but then I remember I live in my kitchen anyway. I might as well cook. So even with an unlimited food budget, I'd probably do pretty much what I do now.

Cheap Food is not an American Tradition

When I hear people complaining about how expensive food is -- and especially about how eating locally is too expensive for the average American -- I like to annoyingly helpfully point out that we spend a smaller percentage of our disposable income than any previous generation.

From a USDA chart showing the percentage of disposable income spent by the average American on food (including food consumed both at home and away from home):


Food -- the food we get from supermarket, the processed and refined food that does us no good, harms the environment, and doesn't provide enough income for small farmers to keep body and soul together -- is cheap. Cheaper than it's ever been, in fact. So cheap that the poor are more likely to be obese than hungry.

Good food -- the sustainably-grown, fresh, tasty food we get from small local farmers -- costs a bit more than the commercially-produced similar items bought in the supermarket. How rich do we really have to be to justify spending what our parents spent for food instead of settling for cheap stuff?