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Food for Thought: Stay Educated About Your Food Purchases

Food For Thought: Don't Be Fooled

As summer approaches, roadside produce stands and farmers markets will begin to grow their customer traffic. These stands and markets can offer excellent opportunities to purchase local, healthy food while also helping the local economy and local farmers however, these venues are not always what they appear. So, depending on your priorities when it comes to food, don't be afraid to keep the vendors honest by asking the right questions regarding how and where the food and flowers they are selling were grown.

Is organic or beyond organic important to you?

If so, ask the sellers how their produce and flowers were grown. Certified organic or not, were the crops sprayed with synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, and the like? If you ask if the crops were grown “conventionally” and they vendor answers yes (or worse, they don't know), then they are not organic.

Who grew the crops for sale? Is knowing the grower important to you?

Not long before we started growing crops, we stopped one day at a new country roadside produce stand. The lady there had a large table and a beautiful display of a bounty of fresh vegetables and fruits. Turns out she had purchased them from a wholesaler at a large nearby farmers market and was simply reselling them. She had no connection to the farms or farmers who grew these crops - neither did the wholesalers from whom she bought them. It wasn't clear where these crops were grown. How can we know how they were grown if we don't know even where or by whom they were grown?

And even in the case of the farmer selling their own crops, it doesn't mean they are growing all they are selling. Here at Barking Cat Farm, we are very diligent about labeling who grows all of the food we sell. We make no secret that we sell food crops from other local organic farms, and we do our best to clearly label the farm of origin. Prior to that, we go to extra effort to get to know the other growers and how they grow their food so that we know we are selling the healthiest food around grown in a way we respect. But on a recent visit to a farmers market, we learned that over half of what one of the vendors was selling was brought in from parts unknown, the ubiquitous “East Texas." It all made a beautiful market display, but the seller made no effort to disclose the fact they didn't grow a lot of what they were selling until questioned point blank about it.

Is eating food grown locally important to you?

If so, ask before you buy about where the crops were grown. In particular, fruit crops are more likely to be trucked in from South Texas or California. If the display isn't labeled, ask the seller where the crop was grown. Most likely, if the crop was bought from a reseller, you can buy the exact same thing at your local grocery store. And by doing that, ironically, you might be spending your money more locally than buying from a vendor who doesn't live in your area.

Bottom Line

Be an educated shopper and don't hesitate to ask questions about the things that are important to you!

Laurie Bostic
Barking Cat Farm
Rockwall, Texas