Farmers Market Week Day 2: Freshness
Today is Day 2 of National Farmers Market Week. Illinois Farmers Market Association created seven excellent graphics highlighting different reasons why you should shop and buy local. The one I published Friday gave the sweeping overview: We buy at farmers markets to build a better food system. Today’s graphic, above, talks about the freshness advantage.
When people talk about the long distances that most groceries travel to get to your local store, it’s in the context of reducing that food’s carbon footprint. While this is a very important benefit, it’s not the only one.
• Food The Way It’s Supposed To Taste: I’ve often described farmers markets as the gateway to the Good Food movement. For many people, biting into that first super-ripe piece of fruit or vegetable, picked no more than a day or two earlier, is a flavor epiphany after a lifetime of eating food that was harvested early to reduce damage in shipping, traveled hundreds or thousands of miles, and probably sat in a warehouse for days or even weeks. Food, no matter how nutritious and sustainably produced, has to taste good if you want consumers to eat it, and the enhanced deliciousness of the food sold at farmers markets has made many, many converts.
• Food Security: The great American industrial food system had worked like clockwork for many decades… until the massive disruptions in 2020 during the early months of the COVID pandemic. Faced with product shortages and delays in getting food delivered, most Americans dealt with food insecurity for the first time in their lives. And for many, local food — with its short supply lines and farmers eager to sell the products they grew — became a lifeline. Moral: Food security alone is an important reason to support local farmers and a robust local food system.
• Shelf Life: Increased shelf life is an under-appreciated reason to buy local. The moment a vegetable or fruit is harvested, its shelf life clock starts ticking. The longer that food takes to get from farm to your home, the less time you’ll have to let it sit on your counter or in your fridge without risking spoilage and waste. Nothing lasts forever, but local food is often more forgiving when it comes to storage.
Back with reason 3 tomorrow. Here’s the market schedule for the rest of National Farmers Market Week (and beyond).
Maybe a bit out of the way for you Chicago folks, but Frankfort also has a great market: https://www.frankfortil.org/residents/special_events/frankfort_country_market.php
Happy to include. Thanks for the heads up!