The Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up Week #13

Happy Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up Lovelies! It's wonderful to see you!

This weekend I made it to the St. Lawrence Market's Saturday Farmer's Market. This ain't your Vancouver Island island market, that's for sure!

While I was blown away by all the local produce - it's a giant mother of a market - I was also shocked and jarred into a startling realization: Just because you're at a farmer's market, that doesn't mean the food is produced ethically. I couldn't believe my ears! Cranberries are all the rage right now and I was amped to pick myself up a basket. Along with beets, some fresh cheese, and maybe even a carton of the last of the Summer tomatoes. I noticed though that no one (with the exception of one farm) advertized they were organic. Now I'm not talkin' certified organic. Whatever. Certification is very expensive, time consuming, and frankly, a little elitist. All I care about is making sure my food comes from a farm that follows organic guidelines and practices = no spraying of scary chemicals, utilizes bio-diverse and perma-culture methods, and gives a crap about the planet and each other. 

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Yeeeeaaaah.... No. When I asked farmers if they sprayed their wares they either reluctantly admitted that hey did in fact use chemicals on their produce, shrugged me off with an "I don't know", or in one case, proceeded to give me a lecture on the need and importance of chemical inputs in order to make a profit. He then went on to say "spray drifts. So even if it's organic, it's not really organic. So you might as well eat sprayed produce". Obviously I promptly told him we could agree to disagree and I shuffled my way to the next booth, feeling downtrodden, deflated and a little pissed off. 

So lesson learned: Just because it's local, that doesn't mean it's ethical. When you're at the farmer's market - ASK if you want to know how your food is being produced/raised. If you don't want to know, it's best you keep your questions to yourself. Ack.

On a more positive note, as per usual we had some pretty amazing links shared last week. You guys sure make my job difficult by writing such excellent posts. Highlights from last week include:

What's in The Box? via In Her Chucks

Chard Rolls via The Healthy Project

Sweet Potato Hash with Beets and Winter Squash via Gourmet Veggie Mama

This link-up is to encourage fresh food production, consumption, activism, and awareness.

Please feel free to link up posts containing:

• CSA collections;
• Farmer's market treasures;
• Home grown/raised hauls;
• Recipes that feature fresh fruits and veggies that are seasonal to your area or feature local, sustainably farmed meats, eggs, and dairy;
• DIY projects and tutorials for: gardening, storing and/or preserving fresh, real foods, composting market scraps, raising chickens in your back yard, etc;
• Tips for local eating such as: tips for CSA members, how to find out what’s in season, how to make the most of your local produce, how to raise chickens, etc...

You may link up to 3 posts in a given week that you haven't shared here before by using the linky tool at the bottom of this post. Feel free to click on any of the linked up posts and say hello by leaving a comment for your fellow fresh food communitarians and/or leave one here to tell us what you've shared - because we know how much we all love comments!

If you don't have a blog but would still like to contribute to the link up, throw me an email and we'll work something out.

And lastly, please include a simple text link back to this blog hop (the post, not the blog's main page) in the post(s) you link up or add a button:

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I want this blog hop to feature you as well as help each other come together to form a resource of good food ways for one another. In order to be featured on the weekly highlights - which includes a highlight on your post here the following week as well as tweets, facebook page "like" and posting, and being added to the Fresh Foods pinterest board - you must have a text link back or button displayed in your post or on your blog. If you don’t link back to this post I can’t feature you.

Don't forget that you can become my friend via GFC by joining this site on the right side bar, and/or find me on twitter, facebook, Pinterest, and my sister site, Taste Buds.

If you have any questions about the blog hop in general, please email me via freshfoodsbloghop (at) gmail (dot) com.