Evil retarded Socialist puts down farmers markets

[TylerDurden]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2653493/Costly-farmers-markets-snobs-says-food-critic-Jay-Rayner-praises-cheaper-supermarket-produce-dismisses-spending-15-chicken-similar-buying-Chanel-handbag.html

This man is an utter moron. In my time in the UK, the only decent  healthy and cheap sources of raw food I ever came across were in farmers markets. All other sources were way more expensive.

[CatTreats]

"Costly" ?? Hahaha. I get the best deals at the farmers market. For $9 I can get a dozen pastured eggs at Whole Foods, OR I can get 30 pastured eggs for $7 (so 6 dozen for $14) at the farmers market. That is a MASSIVE difference. Almost all produce is $1-2 per item or bundle, almost never by weight, and every bundle is usually huge. AND all of these things are organic. The woman we buy organs from gives us a buy-one-get-one-free deal every single time. I'm sure this is because of low demand, but still. Usually the more you buy, the bigger the discount at most stands.

[colorles]

unfortunately i've noticed a decline in farmers markets over the years hear in New England. just ten or fifteen years ago their used to be multiple just in city parks; now its like they hardly seem to exist any more. sure you can go out to the farm...but the farmers market was nice and it promoted a healthy and affordable lifestyle right in the city parks

meanwhile while the farmers markets and small family markets are closing, massive super walmarts and mcdonalds are being built over it (this recently happened in a city i am familiar with, completely changing the feel of the neighborhood it took over. the whole multi-block area went from the feel of an old french american neighborhood with some old granite buildings, to well anybody thats seen a super walmart complete with sams club and mcdonalds can imagine what it looks like). well, thats internationalism for you

[Projectile Vomit]

My experience is opposite that of colorless. I live in Vermont, and it seems new farmers markets are popping up about everywhere you look and most have waiting lists of vendors who want to sell their food products. Granted many vendors want to sell hand-crafted junk (i.e. fancy toffee, maple-flavored candies and cakes, alcoholic beverages, locally brewed root beer), but there are definitely a good selection of vendors selling high quality grass fed meats and pastured eggs. There's legislation working its way through the political process that would even allow raw milk to be sold at farmers' markets.

I hear opinions similar to those in the article Geoff posted often here in Vermont, and I'm sure they're echoed throughout the US. I just wrote a blog post entitled Treating Food as an Investment about the larger issue of food prices, food expenditures and their relationship to health expenditures.  Folks might want to check it out.

I think that 1,000 years from now the humans who are living will be descendants of people today who were willing to invest in the highest of high quality foods. Time will tell, of course.

[CatTreats]

The closest FM for us is always BOOMING with people. Tuesday they're open morning/afternoon, and Thursday they're open afternoon/evening with bands and barbecues. So it attracts a lot of people. There's a few hundred people all hanging out on the grass in the middle of the surrounding stands. And it's grown a lot in the last year, we got quite a few new and friendly stands.

I've found that there's a Farmers Market somewhere within driving distance every single day.

[colorles]

My experience is opposite that of colorless. I live in Vermont, and it seems new farmers markets are popping up about everywhere you look and most have waiting lists of vendors who want to sell their food products. Granted many vendors want to sell hand-crafted junk (i.e. fancy toffee, maple-flavored candies and cakes, alcoholic beverages, locally brewed root beer), but there are definitely a good selection of vendors selling high quality grass fed meats and pastured eggs. There's legislation working its way through the political process that would even allow raw milk to be sold at farmers' markets.

I hear opinions similar to those in the article Geoff posted often here in Vermont, and I'm sure they're echoed throughout the US. I just wrote a blog post entitled Treating Food as an Investment about the larger issue of food prices, food expenditures and their relationship to health expenditures.  Folks might want to check it out.

I think that 1,000 years from now the humans who are living will be descendants of people today who were willing to invest in the highest of high quality foods. Time will tell, of course.

sounds great up in Vermont. i live in southern Massachusetts, and the farmers markets have been withering away over the years. there are obviously some great farms in the region, close by to the cities so its not an issue...but i guess there just isn't enough demand to actually set up stands in the parks anymore. the urban areas down here, like many throughout the country are filled with the "old ways" ie the ways of the old immigrant groups and their traditions, resisting the "new ways" ie the walmarts, mcdonalds, all around degenerate culture

for some people its not a big deal to drive out to the farms...but what the farmers markets were about, was bringing locally grown and pastured organic foods to the city parks, for the neighborhood to enjoy. now that said local culture is being replace by a walmart culture, as expected the health of these neighborhoods is getting worse and worse

[TylerDurden]

Farmers' markets in the UK have been a real saviour of both farmers and customers. FMs died out in the UK, for the most part, in the 1970s, because they weren't adapted to the supermarkets. People turned to the supermarkets because they were closer. Of course, once the supermarkets gained the upper hand, they upped their prices while disguising that fact by  providing regular  "sales"  of substandard foods. Meanwhile, the supermarkets strangled the UK farmers by insisting that they sell at low, profit-less prices for the "privilege" of being a supplier to a particular supermarket chain. In return for this, the farms were often also forbidden from selling any of their food to other customers.

Then Nina Planck came in and revitalised the farmers' markets in London, and other FMs sprang up around the country.  These did not try to compete against the supermarkets, preferring to provide foods not found in any supermarkets. Being able to circumvent the supermarkets, they were able to sell their food to customers at prices  a lot higher than when  previously sold to  supermarkets, while the customers were able to buy at lower prices than usual, simply because the retail-costs of supermarkets were avoided.

In Austria, FMs are pretty dead quality-wise for a rawist.  One might be able to get hold of raw dairy or  raw milk if one is willing to have it delivered straight from an Austrian farm. Cheap-ish raw wild game is currently only easily obtainable from one source in the capital.