Shopping at the farmer's market has many benefits. Some of the benefits include boosting economical conditions, energy conservation, environmental protection, and another step towards regional food self reliance. By eating locally, you help the local economy by keeping the money within the community. When buying from supermarkets such as Times, Safeway, Foodland, etc, a fraction of the money you spend on different products goes towards the foreign food supplier. By buying from farmer's markets, you contribute to the health of the local economy, thus increasing the local quality of life. By picking up a few groceries from the farmer's market, you are conserving energy. By eating locally grown foods, you are helping to decrease on non - renewable energy sources like petroleum. In the United States, one fifth of all the petroleum is used in Agriculture. Organic production systems, such as the ones used by local farmers, do not rely on petroleum derived fertilizers and pesticides. Because of this, farmers save energy on the farm. Buying products from local farmers conserves additional energy at distribution levels. Another benefit of buying from local producers is increased environmental protection. A majority of farming methods used today include, soil erosion, pesticide contamination of soil, air, and water, and nitrate loading of waterways and wells. Local producers practice methods that protect our natural resources (soil, air, and water resources). Buying local produce helps the community take another step toward regional food self reliance. In other words, by buying from local vendors, we are becoming more self sufficient. Consistent dependency on foreign food sources leaves the community very vulnerable to food shortages and possible supply disruptions. By buying foreign products, we are also promoting farms that hurt both the environment and the local economy. Instead of relying on foreign food producers, we should shift our dependence to regional food production systems, which provides job and self-employment opportunities and enables people to influence how their food is grown.
The second part of my day consisted of shopping for the large remainder of my grocery list. My parents and I ended visited Walmart, Times, Sams Club, and a few other places that names have escaped me. Even though it may be the most essential and basic step to cooking, shopping for ingredients has already taught me a few lessons. One thing that I have learned today is that some recipes call for ingredients you may have not even heard of before (or never even knew existed for that matter). For example, one of the ingredients included in the Chicken Pitas w/ Sun - Dried Tomato Vinaigrette recipe is "Chopped Drained Oil-Packed Sun-Dried Tomatoes". Upon reading this, my parents and I looked around in confusion. Chopped Drained Oil-Packed what? After looking for this ingredient in a few stores, we gave up and decided to not include it in our recipe. Another thing I learned is when shopping for ingredients, you may not find everything you need. Instead, you could just learn to substitute exotic and unusual ingredients for more common and known products. For example, I decided to substitute parmesan cheese for the Asiago cheese (needed in the Chicken Pitas) and the romano cheese (needed in the Chicken Linguine). Another ingredient I will be substituting is the garlic flavored extra virgin olive oil needed in the Chicken Linguine. Instead of buying a $12 bottle of oil that we will never use again, my parents and I decided to improvise by using extra virgin olive oil and garlic shreds.
Upon visiting Times Supermarket today, my dad taught me a few things about buying meat and chicken. First of all, the best meat you can get is 90/10, which means that there is 10% fat. The next best one is 80/20, which means that theres is 20% fat (and so on). The more fat you have, the cheaper the meat is. The less fat you have, the more the meat cost. To make the hamburger steak, my dad usually buys the Ground Sirloin 90/10 meat. He says that even though it's more expensive, it's worth it.
Another thing that I had to keep in mind today is how much chicken to buy for the chicken linguine. The recipe calls for 1 lb fresh chicken. To tell you the truth, I didn't know what to expect when it said to buy a pound of chicken. I was thinking of fried chicken, not raw chicken (this comes to show how unexperienced I am when it comes to cooking). In order to have an overall total of 1 lb of chicken, I had to do a little searching along with math. I had to look through the different chickens and add up each of their net weights. Finally, I ended up with chicken slices 0.47 lb and .60 lb, which totals up to 1.07 lbs of chicken. Close enough!
At the end of the day, I helped my mom put away all of the groceries. I have never seen the refrigerator stocked with a wide variety of different vegetables, fruits, and ingredients. It was a nice change. :D
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