This is a typical farmers market haul for us for this time of year. The only thing I wanted that I couldn't get was onions. This will generally last a week with some stuff going into the second week My freezer is full of frozen veggies as well that were on sale last month through UNFI. Cauliflower, broccoli, winter squash and peas are the staples in there. There will be another farmers market this coming weekend or I would have gotten more. In the Winter generally there is a farmers market every 2 weeks but in November and December we have more.
Today we went to a market that we haven't ever been to before, the Clayton Farmers Market. It was an experimental winter market but it went well and they hope to have it there the first Saturday of every month this winter at the Clayton Town Center 50 Gay Ave.
Our family will be at the St. Louis Community Farmers Market at St. John's Church on Arsenal across from Tower Grove Park on the 2nd Saturday of the month all winter to shop with our favorite vendors. We have been shopping so long with them that we know them well. The new ones and the old ones. The ones we can trust and the ones we rarely shop with. I love knowing the people who grow and prepare the food that my family eats.
We will also be at the Maplewood Winter Farmers Market November 19th, December 17th, January 28th, February 25th, March 31st. At Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood. We might even be brave enough to go for brunch one of these times. Cross contamination is still a real risk and I seem to be the one that suffers the most with my corn allergy but I do miss eating out.
Two more options for Winter local products are City Greens, which is open every Thursday from 11-5 and The Vine Winter Market in Ferguson, MO This market will be on the 3rd Saturday of the Month all winter.
Now why does this matter? Because eating local food is good for your body and it is good for your community. It give you food with the most vitamins and that tastes the best. And it means that the person who is selling you that food is also the farmer and can tell you how it was raised and will go home that night and benefit from the money you spent with him or her. Grocery store food mostly benefits people who shuffle it around the country or the world and has to often be picked before it is ripe and treated to keep it from going bad before you can eat it. It may look fresh but what is obvious in a grocery store tomato that tastes like the package it came it, is true about the rest of the produce. None of them are as nutritious as food that was just picked that day or the day before.
So get involved in your local food community! I learned today in a little Quiz that I did that only 20% of the food consumed in Missouri is grown in Missouri. And Missouri is #2 for number of farms. How can that be? We need to start buying and asking for local food and more farmers will grow it. Then all of us will be healthier and so will our economy.
10 comments:
Correction: City Greens is only open on Thursdays during the winter.
Thanks Jenna. I'll fix that. Has that started already? The website still says both days.
What a great haul! It makes me sigh a little with relief that there may be more than a couple of onions and a potato when we hit the winter market this weekend. ;) We're hitting the big market in Detroit (Eastern Market) so I can be sure there will be produce. I'm just not sure what, if any, will be organic. You should keep posting on what your weekly haul is during the challenge! It may help pull some people away from the grocery stores.
Patty, I see you have carrots. Do you just eat them sometimes b/c they're med ox? Or is it the people in your family who don't need LOD that eat them? (How do you know who has a problem and who doesn't?) We cut out carrots a while ago, but I just bought some b/c we're introducing juicing. Not sure if that's a good idea, but I knew my kids wouldn't drink plain cabbage and cuke juice :)
Hi Erin,
Very observant. Only 2 of us need to be on a low oxalate diet so those carrots are for the other 2.
Cabbage does have a very strong flavor for juicing and tastes best right away. Never let cabbage juice sit more than about 20 min before consuming it. Cucumbers however are very mild and are often used to sweeten the juice a bit. You can also include lettuce for a mild low oxalate juice. I find that some lemon juice (also low oxalate) makes the really green juices much tastier. And if you can tolerate fruit you could also include a low oxalate fruit like apple to sweeten it up a bit. Juicing is going to concentrate the oxalate since it is water soluble so it probably isn't a good idea to juice anything but low oxalate fruits and veggies.
I have a history of kidney stones and vulvar pain and once my younger daughter got old enough to tell me I discovered she also had vulvar pain and pain with eliminating. I already knew that she was very sensitive to many high oxalate foods so it wasn't a big surprise. I put the whole family on a lower oxalate diet for simplicity's sake but it made no difference for my husband or my other child so they eat some higher oxalate foods for snacks. Going low oxalate may improve symptoms or make them worse. Both are indications of an oxalate problem. I noticed no differences in those two family members when the oxalate content of their diet was drastically reduced so I concluded that they probably don't have a problem with high oxalate foods. There is a yahoo group called Trying Low Oxalates that has lots of resources to help you understand oxalates better. I would like to write a blog post about Oxalates in the future but that could be a while.
Patty
Thanks, Patty. I'm a member of Trying LO, but I don't find it as user-friendly as the GAPS group. I keep thinking I need to read a book about oxalates, b/c I feel kind of in the dark. And a lot of their answers they give about things are too scientific and confusing to me :)
I was also going to ask you, we're on intro and I skipped juicing and did the stewed apples. We've been fine on them. Do you think I could go ahead and do some cabbage/cucumber with some apple if are to avoid the oxalates?
Erin- Sorry I didn't get notified about your comment. I do think you could go ahead and juice what works for you. Just be sure to take it slow. Juicing is very detoxifying and some need to start with just one kind of veggie and just a tiny serving at first.
Hi Patty, I ordered this gluten free vanilla online and i took the rest for granted. It has sugar in it. I want to be making this kind of stuff and plus my friend gave me an idea to make coconut pudding with my canned coconut milk (Native Forest). Ideas on finding vanilla? I don't want to make it. Also, i am needing to work with the flavor of my pudding a little, it's not perfect, kinda has an after taste. I'm using Knox gelatin.
I have had that happen with vanilla before. It is very simple to make yourself. I also have a vanilla powder I recently purchased from Green Polkadot Box. And Frontier brand vanilla extract is gaps legal.
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