You need to be an eccentric millionaire to shop at the farmers markets here in farm country. The one we visited today offers a tiny bunch of butter lettuce for $4.50, one tiny homemade cookie for $3, one tiny bunch of dill for $6, a small cup of lemonade for $6, three tomatoes for $8, and so on. It’s either buy a used helicopter or make a salad with farm produce. I bought a couple of things and then drove to the supermarket to get everything else I needed for a salad. If I’d gotten everything I needed for the salad at this market, that would have been my whole Labor Day food budget.
Expensive Farmer’s Market
Clarissa's Blog 
So a bus with fresh food on this photo:
https://nerdymouse.tumblr.com/image/177535052679
is from a supermarket?
I am surprised they do not even have supermarkets.
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At the farmers market today there was precisely this kind of bus where people could donate food and then later it would be taken across the river for the folks in need.
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Another curious thing. We are a pretty integrated town. At the playground, between a third to 80% of kids are regularly not white. But at the farmers market a mile away from the playground I never saw a single person who wasn’t lily white.
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Maybe that particular farmer’s market caters to affluent white people who believe that paying top dollar for everything is a badge of their elitism –and yes, there are plenty of people like that!
By the way, Clarissa, could you put “Dreidel” back in your WordPress website list, so that I don’t have to type in my e-mail address and name each time I comment?
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You are on the list. I have no idea why it stopped recognizing you.
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I have discovered that if I open your blog in Firefox, your comment section recognizes me as “Dreidel,” but now if I open it in Chrome, I’m considered anonymous. 🙂
I haven’t changed any settings, so it’s going to take me a while to figure out what the hell happened!
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That’s pretty much the only aspect where Firefox seems superior at this point.
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I finally snapped at how bad firefox was getting and ended up switching to waterfox (a pre-terribleness firefox clone).
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We’ve got that farmer’s market, and a couple of others. It’s wild how different the prices are. Everything at the elite one is allegedly organic but it’s not necessarily picked at just the right moment, etc., seems not always professionally grown. The cheaper ones are part organic part not but the vegetables seem less like someone’s experiment.
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“Organic” food tastes the same to me as — what’s the cheaper stuff called — (“inorganic”??), and if eating standard food were going to give me cancer or otherwise kill me, if would have do so by now. So I do practically all of my shopping at the local supermarket.
Why pay for the difference if you can’t taste it?
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I find it’s not organic or not that matters, it’s naturally ripened or not. Supermarkets have crappy tomatoes and fruit nowadays, I find. Mealy, goes from green to rotten, etc. So if I can find some local farmer who didn’t rush the crops or pick them before their time, it’s good.
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Absolutely. These farmer market tomatoes do taste fenomenal. Nothing like the plastic store variety.
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I agree that organic food does not necessarily taste better etc, but there is an argument that it is better for the environment.
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I thought it’s supposed to be healthier?
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\ At the farmers market today there was precisely this kind of bus where people could donate food and then later it would be taken across the river for the folks in need.
To be given for free or sold? Who defines who is “in need” and who simply wants free stuff?
It’s weird to buy super-expensive food at the farmer’s market and then donate it instead of buying much more vegetables and fruits at the supermarket for bigger donation, which would’ve helped poor much more.
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I agree with you completely. Which is why I didn’t participate in this charity bus drive today and instead I donate to two local food pantries.
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\ I thought it’s supposed to be healthier?
Ha! Look at this summary of a real article:
// Scientists have revealed that air pollution may be responsible for a significant reduction in intelligence. Research conducted for the World Health Organization (WHO) in China showed that air pollution was responsible for notable falls in student test scores for languages and arithmetic. The Chinese study is called, “The impact of exposure to air pollution on cognitive performance”. It was published in a journal called, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”. The study took place over a period of four years. Researchers analyzed verbal and arithmetic tests taken by 20,000 people of all ages. They said: “Polluted air may impede cognitive ability as people become older.”
Researchers say their study is a warning to the rest of the world, especially to those who live in cities. The WHO says over 91 per cent of the world population live in areas with toxic air. Air pollution is currently the fourth highest cause of deaths worldwide. The researchers discovered that the longer people were exposed to polluted air, the greater was the damage to their intelligence. They equated the impact of air pollution to losing a year’s worth of education. For those aged over 60, this could be the equivalent of several years of lost education. Researcher Dr Xi Chen warned: “There is no shortcut to solve this issue. Governments really need to take concrete measures to reduce air pollution.”
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