farmer's market fresh

Buying local in Ontario just got easier.

The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation unveiled a new website yesterday aimed at providing some direction for those looking to buy local in Ontario.

Greenbeltfresh.ca will help Ontarians find local farmer's markets by simply entering a postal code. The site has a wealth of information including seasonal foods, recipes and a listing of local food restaurants.

This is such great news!

Greenbelt

finding the real farmer

A wise neighbour once gave me a handy tip: on your next visit to your local farmer’s market be sure to check out their vehicle licence plates. Farmers usually have specially marked plates issued by the Ministry of Agriculture – plates that have the word ‘FARM’.

That is not to say that every farm vehicle is specially marked, but there is the chance that those that aren’t may not belong to the actual farm, but instead to a wholesaler or third party seller of goods.

I find this trick invaluable when trying to decide which stand to buy from. There’s just something to be said for putting my money directly into the hand of a hard-working farmer.

how to really eat local (or, the anti-SUV diet)

One of the most earth-friendly things we can do is to buy local foods, yet we're supermarket shoppers, pushing around endangered sea bass flown in from Chile next to bananas shipped in from India, so most of us don't really know how. And until recently, no one seemed to care.

The surprising popularity of Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon's book, The 100 Mile Diet has turned eating local into a movement. Their inspiration? "When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles - call it 'the SUV diet.'"

So, for one year, they bought or gathered their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, getting up-close-and-personal with issues ranging from the family-farm crisis to the environmental value of organic pears shipped across the globe.

So what's a supermarket shopper to do? Start with these sites:

CBC's Marketplace did a show on food ingredients...and where they really come from. For example, if it claims to be ice cream but doesn't contain any cream, it's probably not from around here. Read their tips here.

NOW Toronto's cover story on local eating. 'Your Local Farmers Market' in Vancouver has some fresh tips here. For Ontarions, a great list of home delivery and natural food buying clubs.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, buy Adria Vasil's ecoholic! Lots of ideas here for you to chew on.

Brick Works Farmers’ Market, Toronto

Saturday’s until October 27th. 8:00am to 1:00pm. Planet and family friendly. Ontario produce, socially & environmentally conscious goods, artists, entertainers, storytelling and educational activities. Part of the inspriring Evergreen project to transform Toronto’s historic Don Valley Brick Works factory from an underused, deteriorating collection of buildings into a thriving environmentally-based community centre that engages visitors in diverse experiences connected to nature. See you there!