Comments on: The Great Farmers Market Taste-off

By: I Believe in Real Food

I Believe in Real Food — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:55:35 +0000

[...] on the street, I join him a few hours later and it’s there that we welcome vendors, host taste tests comparing fresh and local foods to storebought, or supply low-income residents of our community with vouchers to purchase farm-fresh real food [...]

By: Heather

Heather — Sat, 08 May 2010 16:25:16 +0000

Anyone who can’t taste the difference between a farm or garden ripened tomato & a grocery store tomato must have broken tastebuds! I wish our government wouldn’t subsidize ANY farmers! Not with direct money or with biased laws. They’re not constitutionally supposed to, anyway, so let’s have a level playing field & let the people decide!

By: margo

margo — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:59:15 +0000

What a nice initiative. I realy hope that people are converted and are willing to pay the extra price and put in the extra time to cook a real meal. Luck with your actions, Margo

By: Lynda

Lynda — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:02:35 +0000

I am not surprised by the results of your taste test. I find it hard to believe that anyone can argue food picked three weeks and shipped from who knows where tastes better than something freshly picked! Even my teenage son can tell the difference. When I go to the store he always tells me to get the “good eggs and milk” (from local pastured animals rather than conventional). I can’t eat much of store bought anything anymore after fresh local foods and gardening.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:01:36 +0000

I agree with Sandra that even if the produce tasted exactly the same, there are social and environmental issues involved with farmer’s markets that would induce me to prefer them over, say, Kroger.

1. More money goes into the grower’s pocket. Part of the cause of decline among family-owned small farms has been the razor-thin profit margin.

2. Less transportation time is involved. As you and others have pointed out, that means better ripening and greater freshness, not to mention the lesser amount of fossil fuel consumed.

and finally…

3. A community that can feed itself has a much greater amount of freedom than one which cannot. I regularly correspond with people who like to philosophize about where our modern world has gone wrong. Most of us have decided that one of the major problems is that the food’s locked up. A community having to import its food in order to avoid starvation is just another way that the food’s locked up. Local food is freer food, and much greater security against economic slavery, among other kinds.

Taste is a pretty minor factor compared to all those.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:06:12 +0000

I agree with Sandra and Jenn, and I like JeanMarie’s second point too. Having a particularly strong farmer’s market in Columbia Missouri (http://www.columbiafarmersmarket.org/), we also enjoy entertainment like local musicians, kite experts, and so forth.

It would help strengthen your case, I suspect, if you could give us a sense of how many people participated in your experiment. We’re already believers, of course, but when relaying this anecdote, it would be great if we could specify the numbers, whether two dozen or two hundred.

Cheers, and keep up the great writing!

By: Sher

Sher — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:58:24 +0000

Wait a minute, somebody actually wrote a book opposing the local foods movement?? What?? That just seems bizarre. Really mind boggling that a person would even claim grocery store tomatoes are the same as home grown… anybody with a tomato growing grandparent knew by the age of two that grandma’s tasted a million times better. What a ridiculous, outrageous stance. Good for you for crafting a productive response to the author’s drivel.

By: Haley J.

Haley J. — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:20:38 +0000

What a great idea! I think it’s fantastic that you guys did this at your market. And, you’re absolutely right – farm fresh food does taste best. I find it particularly appalling that the book called out conventional tomatoes as being just as good. Tomatoes might be the most remarkable difference of all! It’s virtually impossible to find passable store tomatoes, while many other vegetables are acceptable.

By: The Banana | Strawberry Valley

The Banana | Strawberry Valley — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:55:08 +0000

[...] Great Farmers Market Taste-off, Nourished Kitchen shares the results of a blind taste-test they conducted at their farmer’s [...]

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:46:06 +0000

Sara -

I completely agree about the beef - and any animal product really - the flavor is so strikingly better when it comes to grass-finished beef or pasture-raised pork and poultry. The other stuff is virtually flavorless by comparison I think. You raise a good point, I think: originally, I embarked on traditional foods because I felt they were healthier but the fact that the food just tastes and feels so darn good keeps me coming back again and again.

- Jenny

By: Jeanmarie

Jeanmarie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:18:48 +0000

I always love reading this blog but you’ve outdone yourself. What an important issue, and what a simple solution — actually test out the thesis that people can’t tell the difference between farm-fresh food and conventional stuff trucked in from another state. I shop at my local farmers market every Wednesday, and it’s a small affair, not a carnival, and I don’t eat the produce on site, I take it home and eat it and marvel at the quality and flavor. Other than the farmers market and what I grow myself, I have two other options: the local grocer (I stay away from Safeway) or a natural foods co-op in a neighboring village. There is a difference in quality between the two that we have noticed over and over. The local grocer is good for berries, but vegetables are very often old and overpriced. The food co-op has fresh, high-quality food, often from the same folks I buy from at the farmers market. If you cook and eat real food, it doesn’t take too long to develop a taste for fresh, carefully grown food.

Another advantage to farmers markets that Michael Pollan has pointed out is that people engage in many more conversations than at a grocery store. I know that is true for me. I’ve learned about honey from the beekeeper, goats from the chevre purveyor, and farmers market politics from the biodynamic grower that has the best lettuce mix and eggs. The beef lady teaches me about different cuts, and the crab-cake guy told me where he gets his crab in the off-season. At the grocery store, I exchange pleasantries with the check-out clerk, and occasionally with the butcher when I ask for chicken necks and backs for my homemade stock. That’s it. On most trips to the grocery store, I might as well be alone in the store for all the human contact. At the farmers market, I’m always warmly received and questions are knowledgeably answered.
Thanks again!

By: Aelinn

Aelinn — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:32:50 +0000

Ditto Sara’s comment about meats! We usually buy our fish from a fellow at the farmer’s market who fishes in the morning, then brings that day’s catch to market. We don’t even bother with fish from the store anymore; it just doesn’t taste good compared to the fresh stuff!