Saturday, July 3, 2010

Farmer's Markets

The diet is the basis for our health. Much of what we take in as food quite literally becomes our bodies, as substances we digest and absorb are distributed to various tissues of the body to participate in processes of rebuilding, repairing and regenerating our very cells. Much of our food comes from a long way away, undergoes multiple handling steps from field to grocery store shelf, most of which remains completely unknown and abstract to us as consumers. I've been thinking about this a lot more lately and really appreciating the lovely, local, super fresh produce and ethically raised meats available at our local farmer's markets in Ottawa. Most recently I've cycled down to the Shouldice berry farm to pick my own baskets full of intoxicatingly fragrant strawberries (literally surrounded by STRAW...hmmm!)
and red raspberries; visited the Landsdowne Park farmer's market which fills the stadium's north parking lot every Sunday from June to November, and the Ottawa Organic Farmers' Market, which is tucked inconspicuously into a parking lot near Bank St. and Heron that, as learned today, has been its Saturday home for the past 22 years! The opportunity to interact directly with the farmers and growers who produce our food is gratifying and enlightening. "New" and heirloom vegetable and fruit varieties that just never show up in chain grocery stores are always of interest, like curly-whirly green garlic tops, rainbow chard, German wine rhubarb and leafy lovage. It's so healthy to enjoy what's local and fresh at just the peak of its particular season and I relish the image of my cells soaking up all the gorgeous nutrients. Colours, flavours and fragrances of foods are enhanced - or rather, just as they should be - when eaten fresh and in season. "Organically certified" is great, but being local and "close" to certifiable is fine by me. In my conversations with farmers I've realized that what we actually want when we look for "organically" grown food is that it is as healthy (i.e. nutrient-rich and toxin-poor) as possible, makes a minimal negative impact on the environment, and, for animal products, is derived from animals that lived in the kind of conditions their bodies were designed for and were cared for humanely in both life and death. Case in point, this week I tried some "almost organic" bison burgers - meaning, as it was explained to me by the very man who raised them, the animals had been dewormed at some point during their lives, and their diets had contained a small proportion of non-organic corn. I'm very OK with that! These are the kinds of details you can only get from conversing directly with the people who grow your food and bring it to market. They deserve our highest respects.

1 comment:

  1. IT IS GREAT TO LEARN ABOUT YOU. YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB .TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR SELF MAY GOD BLESS YOU TRUE HAPPINESS
    THANK YOU REGDS
    NIRMALS BABBAR

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