WELLNESS--Farmers markets have been around forever with the most famous market of all being the Original Farmers Market here in Los Angeles. As novel as it is to believe that this was the first farmers market, farmers have been setting up food stands in busy metropolitan areas as far back as the start of cities. More recently in the mid-2000’s the food movement started reaching enough people causing greater quality demands to be made. People realize that getting food from the farmer that literally travelled from the farm to the farmers market that same day was a much better choice.
When buying foods or other goods at the local farmers markets, one has the ability to address any questions you may have directly to the source. When we buy produce at a grocery store it’s very likely that we have no idea where exactly this food came from, and for how long has it been pulled from the ground? We want our food, especially fruit and vegetables, to be as fresh as possible. As soon as fruits and vegetables are harvested, there are fungi that start to grow and decompose them. The longer they are stored with being consumed, the greater number of fungi and bacteria present. The less time we give them to replicate, the better.
Farmers markets tend to draw a healthier more food aware crowd of people. Therefore, the farmers know that things like pesticides and genetically modified foods would not be welcome at the market. While our government keeps telling us that these things are not dangerous, there is mounting evidence to the contrary.
It is not unusual for food at your local grocery chain to have travelled over a thousand miles to get to that store. This requires lots of energy usually in the form of fossil fuels adding to the pollution levels. In addition, there is more packaging used in grocery chains creating more garbage as opposed to the farmers market that usually has no packaging and was transported that same day by the very farmer him or herself.
Besides the obvious health benefits, we are also supporting our local farmers instead of paying our money into big grocery chains that very often take that money and send it to their headquarters bank. While these stores do employ people, they also tend to channel money away from our local communities. The farmers market is always a fun place to go walk around and absorb the positive healthy energy of the local community. In big cities like Los Angeles, we can all use more time outside in the fresh air with our neighbors.
(Christian Cristiano is an acupuncturist in LA, TV host of Wellness for Realists and writes on wellness regularly for CityWatch. Christian can be reached at 310.909.6956 twitter: @CristianoWFR)
-cw
Why Farmers Markets?
