My Local BountyTaking the No GMO Challenge last week, inspired me to get up Saturday morning and take a trip to our local farmer's market. And what an experience! For the first time, I actually got to speak with the person who grew my food! I inquired about their farming practices, how the animals were treated and what diet they ate.
I learned the strawberries were picked from the field the day before. And along with the tomatoes and cucumbers were grown pesticide free. The Angus beef came from a farm where all the animals are born there and thus known from "conception to table". The cows are raised on native pastures of grass and clover, never given hormones or antibiotics and never confined to a factory feedlot. The farmer who supplied the eggs told me about how their chickens walk about the farm eating grass and bugs, leading a happy chicken life. She even invited me to come visit their farm so the kids could see the animals and enjoy the rope swing. Good ole' North Carolina sweet potatoes still covered in dirt and a bar of goats milk and honey soap, crafted by hand. All local. All within an hour from my home. From the farmer's hands, straight to mine!
From Farm to Plate
9 comments:
This is so awesome!
Doesn't it feel good to shop at the farmer's market and meet the people who are growing our food? I love shopping so much more now that I do it at the farmer's market instead of the grocery store.
PS: I stumbled your post!
I love this post. Isn't it amazing how such simple things can bring so much pleasure. I'm glad taking the No-GMO Challenge inspired you to meet your local farmers and have such a good experience!
Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade)
Awesome! I'm so glad it inspired you. I LOVE shopping at my farmers market. I'm jealous you have strawberries. :) Last summer my 3.5 year old would go with me and eat either a pint of strawberries or cherry tomatoes while I shopped.
Aren't farmer's markets great? We have several over here & many more independant stands. I hope you enjoyed goodies.
I stumbled on your blog and love to see another Carolina girl. i love the Farmer's Market. :)
I see you use sucanat a lot. Do you ever use turbinado? I have a lot of recipes that have brown sugar and white sugar. Do you know how I would substitute those?? Thanks for any help!!!
Holly - check out this informative post by the Nourishing Gourmet on natural sweetners.
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2008/12/guide-to-natural-sweeteners_08.html
I think sucanat makes a great substitute for brown sugar, and even for white. For me it all depends on the recipe/dish. If there's something I don't want the molasses taste from the sucanat in, then I'll use honey. Like for the pizza dough recipe I use which calls for white sugar. Hope that helps!
That website is great. Thank you. It answers a lot of questions.
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