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Lose Weight, Visit Your Farmers Market!

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:00:46 +0000

I have just returned from a stay with my family in France, one of the highlights of which is visiting the local markets. I love the atmosphere, variety and sense of occasion of the French market; the experience of shopping for food is transformed from the mundane into an adventure. My children also adore the experience, and took a handful of euros and bought themselves tiny ‘forest’ strawberries, juicy peaches, crisp lettuce and bundles of broad beans from a wizened old-timer who had cycled down to market with just two boxes of beans from his garden.

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Shopping at the local market is the happy antithesis of supermarket shopping; swap clinical lights and air-con for sunshine and fresh air, swap product-brainwashing for seasonal variety, swap fatty, salty unhealthy food for fresh healthy produce, swap wingeing frustrated children for interested ones, and swap the charmless and bored cashier for genuine social interaction, possibly with the person who grew the produce. Ok so maybe I wax lyrical about these things, but I am passionate about shopping and food, and the market gives a more fundamental link to the produce, its source, and the people who grew it. Food is central to our health and wellbeing, and shopping should be enjoyable and sociable; choosing new things, seeing a broad variety of foods laid out underneath the sunshine, touching and smelling things before you buy them, meeting interesting people who can give recipe ideas, or explain how they raise their livestock, and bumping into friends. I am so glad that the continental market experience has rubbed off on us, with Farmers Markets gaining popularity everywhere.

Using your local Farmers market has many benefits; it is a more fulfilling life experience, kinder to the environment, supportive of the local economy, and better for your health. Locally produced, freshly gathered seasonal produce is likely to be higher in beneficial nutrients than your average supermarket produce, and some of the things will even have been gathered that morning. Even ‘local’ produce in the supermarket will have been driven to a distribution centre before being driven back to the local area, and much produce is driven and flown half way across the world, stored in refrigerated warehouses and generally treated in ways that diminish its nutritional benefits and its ‘life’. Using your Farmers Market will help reduce global warming caused by lorry and plane ‘food miles.’ If you take your own basket and bags you will help cut down on the environmental havoc caused by excessive supermarket packaging. After making the effort to save the planet, your health and the local economy, go continental; sit down with your well-stocked basket, sip a coffee and watch the world go by!

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To find your local market in the UK log onto www.farmersmarkets.net and for more markets, farm shops, and Pick-Your-Own try www.farma.org.uk

If you live in the US then try www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm to find markets in your state, and for Canada http://marketplace.chef2chef.net/farmer-markets/canada.htm

For more information on local food, supporting farmers, and buying organic, visit www.soilassociation.org

Next week, 3 seasonal vegetables you will find in your farmers market, and what to do with them.

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Austin Farmer’s Markets

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:22:57 +0000

As many Austinites relish living a healthy lifestyle, it’s no surprise that Farmers’ Markets are a hit in the city. The markets bring fresh foods from locally grown areas to those looking for an alternative to the goods found in the neighborhood grocery store.

Though many cities don’t have a farmers’ market, Austin has had up to five at one time, with the Austin Farmers’ Market being one of the most popular. Located both in the center of town, at 4th and Guadalupe, and also north-central in Triangle Park, the Austin Farmers’ Market supports local farms, ranches, dairies and nurseries within a 150 mile radius. The central location is open every Saturday and the north location is open Wednesdays year round, rain or shine. The Austin Farmers’ Market is a “Grower’s Only” market, meaning vendors sell only items that they grow, and nothing that has been imported in any way.

The Austin Farmers’ Market began, and is still run, as a project of the local non profit group called the Sustainable Food Center in 2003. With roots dating back to 1975, the Sustainable Food Center was created to “create a Food Secure community by improving access to local, healthy, and affordable food for children and adults in Central Texas.” Not only do they donate produce to local area food banks, and teach gardening practices to the public, but by running the Austin Farmers’ Market in the middle of town, they also make freshly grown produce accessible to low-income residents.

Now celebrating their 10th year, the Sunset Valley Farmers’ Market is also held every Saturday, at Toney Burger Center in South Austin, and was recently voted as the “Best Farmers’ Market” in the 2007 Austin Chronicle Readers’ Poll. 75% of the produced sold is grown organically or sustainably, and free of pesticides and fertilizers; participants boast some produce is picked just hours before it is purchased.

Alongside the fresh produce brought in from local vendors, the farmers’ markets can entertain and educate, by putting on chef’s demos, providing children’s activities, and having local musicians perform. Also local artisans are invited to sell their wares, and many farmers bring prepared foods, such as jams, salsas, and empanadas, using their own ingredients.

Though many farms bring their goods in from Austin’s surrounding areas, Boggy Creek Farm is possibly the closest, in the heart of East Austin, just off Pleasant Valley Road. Now surrounded by subdivisions, schools, and commercial areas that were all once part of the farm, Boggy Creek Farm sits on 5 acres of hearty soil, and is one of the few truly urban farms in the nation. When they aren’t selling their fresh produce at a farmers’ market, they help stock Whole Foods grocery store, which sits 3 miles away.

In 2007, environmental magazine GreenLight, named the Austin Farmers’ Market as one of their top ten farmers’ markets in the country, out of over 4,000 markets. They based their findings on strict adherence to sustainable farming practices, distance from markets to farms, and the market’s focus on food and farm-related community and educational projects, among other criteria. Though the farmers’ markets of Austin can be an enjoyable and delicious experience, they are also living up to a high national standard while bringing the urban and farming communities together, and helping out all involved.

Morpeth Market Town

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:22:15 +0000

The town can be found in the North East of England. Proximity to A1, the East Coast main railway line and Newcastle International Airport make for excellent accessibility and rapid transport. The town has a good balance of mixed retail property and commercial services and light industry. Morpeths central Northumberland location as an ideal base from which to explore the entire county. As well as having its own range of attractions accommodation and entertainment. Morpeth is convenient for the city centre attractions of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is a desirable town in which to live with quality schools good housing and an excellent location. The administrative HQ for local government in Northumberland is found in Morpeth. The population is privately fourteen thousand. Market day is a Wednesday. The farmer market meets on the first Sunday of each month.

The River Wansbeck flows through the centre of the town and provides riverside walks linked to the attractive Carlisle Park. There is also a leisure centre and swimming pool.

Northumberland is the only county with its own musical instrument the Northumbrian pipes. This museum follows the development of bagpipes around the world using a unique sound system with personal headphones.

The clock tower in the town centre is very unusual, it has a free standing bell tower not connected to any other building, such as church. It still sounds the night curfew at eight o clock every evening. The divisions on the clock are also unusual in that there are only four divisions between the hour numbers. This was because when the clock was first built it only had one hand the hour hand.

Famous Northumbrians include Admiral Lord Collingwood. He was Horatio Nelsons second in command at the Battle of Trafalgar taking over the fleet on Nelsons death and holding the Mediterranean command thereafter.

Ghost and legends include the invasion of the Body Snatchers. St Marys Churchyard in Morpeth has a watchtower built in 1830. It was provided to guard against body snatchers who found the graveyard a particularly convenient point on the A1 to allow for a quick getaway. The bodies, needed to be fresh, were stolen to sell to the Medical Schools in Edinburgh for dissection and analysis.

A horse riding school can be found two miles North East of Morpeth. There is one qualified instructor offering group lessons to beginners and advance riders. It is an outdoor arena, which includes show jumping.