Supermarket vs. Farmers Market

Last Friday I was on a great panel with chef Ric Orlando, Rebekah Rice from Nine Mile Farm and Sharon DiLorenzo from Capital District Community Gardens. We could have talked about food for hours.

Actually, I’m looking forward to making it out to Rebekah’s farm one of these days and bringing back some of her eggs.

For me the panel was an exercise in restraint. I have something to say on just about everything. But I also wanted to allow other panelists a chance to speak. For the most part I think I was pretty good at hitting the issues I felt most strongly about. However, there was one where the moderator moved the conversation forward before I had a chance to weigh in.

It was one helluva question.

One of the great benefits of having a blog is that even when the panel discussion is over and the audience has left the room, I still have a platform to answer questions. Maybe the woman who originally asked it will even get to read my answer.

But we were talking about CSAs and farmers markets. And the attendee wanted to know our thoughts on buying produce from the supermarket versus the farmers market. Here’s my answer.

I shop everywhere.

While I believe strongly in eating local, seasonal and sustainable, I’m not an ideologue. I’m not giving up my coffee, chocolate or wines of the world. You can’t buy pineapples at farmers markets in upstate New York.

Almost every week in the winter and early spring months I bring home a pineapple from the grocery store. Mostly because according to the Environmental Working Group, they have the fewest pesticide residues of all the conventionally raised fruits.

But where you shop really depends on what you care about.

I want to find the most delicious things to eat. Always. And really, I would prefer that they weren’t grown using pesticides/herbicides/fungicides. Not because I think these sprays are going to kill me. It’s just that I have this romanticized idea that farming should involve harnessing nature and not finding new and interesting ways to kill it. Nor do I want the people growing my food to require a hazmat suit to do their job.

When it comes to delicious foods, the farmers market has a distinct advantage. Foods can be picked riper, when they are more prone to bruising, since they’re traveling a much shorter path from the farm to the consumer. Smaller quantities of more interesting varietals can be grown and brought to market, as there aren’t pressures to make sure a bin of lamb’s tongue lettuce is always stocked.

But there is another much less considered subject when it comes to the production of tasty food. And that’s the health of the soil. Synthetic fertilizers can be pumped into the ground. That can give almost any patch of dirt enough nutrients to sustain life. Or a farmer can use good crop rotation practices and lay down rich compost so that their plants burst with flavor.

At a farmers market you can ask the farmer about their soil. They’ll probably light up and tell you more than you ever wanted to know. But this is information that you can’t get from a supermarket.

Supermarkets are getting much better at labeling produce that is locally sourced. And that’s great. But something people are inclined to forget is that large industrially produced fruits and vegetables still come from local, family owned farms. They are just a bit bigger than the idealized family farm that your mind conjures up whenever you hear those words.

The mass market availability of organic produce has exploded in the last ten years as well. You can find organic options in almost every grocery store these days.

However, mass market organic, while indeed largely an improvement from conventionally raised produce, still has its problems. Like, for example, it can still be routinely sprayed with pesticides. It’s just that they aren’t synthetic pesticides. However, they are still just as deadly to living things as their conventional siblings.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that just because you shop at the farmers market that you are getting food free from synthetic pesticides either. Local farms can also use all sorts of nasty chemicals. And some of them even grow genetically engineered crops (some to be used as cattle feed for their otherwise sustainably produced milk).

Recently I’ve come around to the notion that I don’t want my food to be a product, I want it to be food. And large farms are very much like factories, complete with industrial pollution and environmental degradation. So to this end, I’ve been prioritizing locally grown foods. And I’ve been trying to learn more about the farms where the food comes from.

It’s hard. And it’s certainly more expensive than the conventional alternative. But in the end I feel like I’m getting tastier food. And I feel good that it is actually food.

Which isn’t to say I’m perfect. Far from it. I’m not looking for perfection anyhow. After all, if we vote with our dollars it’s good to support those who are making incrementally positive changes to farming practices. Still, I’m finding less and less at the supermarket these days that’s actually appealing.

You know, besides the pineapples.