“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough”

Frank Crane

We try to get to a farmers market at least once a month. Nothing wrong with the larger food stores but at a farmers market you can find a healthier selection of foods and usually it is by local farmers in the area. I write usually because in the city here we have run across some deception with it comes to locally grown foods. I do try to support small business as much as possible but sometimes that can be hard.

My husband and I noticed a lot of stickers on a beautiful fruit and vegetable stall once with signs everywhere stating that they got all their produce from local farmers.They were the same labels from a larger well known grocery store in our city.

This particular vegetable stall was charging double the price for their tomatoes when all anyone had to do was drive down the street a little farther and get the same tomatoes on sale that day for less then what they were charging.

Guess someone didn’t take the time to remove all those stickers that morning. The tomatoes looked too perfect and anyone that grows their own knows what a home grown tomato looks like compared to a mass produced one.

The environment of shopping at a Farmer’s market with stalls filled with giant Sunflowers and people out walking their dogs around tables, it’s hard not to get caught up in the possible deception and entertainment value of them. What is there not to love about a farmer’s market?.

The trend of shopping at farmers markets in the big cities is very popular. Here in the city we get charged a lot for that entertainment of country farms and natural foods. But you can never really know what you are getting in the big cities unless you grow it yourself or you know the people you are buying from. So be careful when shopping at some of these markets in the big cities that say all organic and locally grown. It is very easy to lie now days it seems. You might as well hit the big grocery store chains and save a ton of money  by buying it there instead of a pretty stall outside.

The farmers market I am sharing with you today is all the way out in Mesa Arizona and has been around for a very long time. They are super friendly and it is so popular sometimes there are long lines to wait in but they go fast.

I especially enjoy seeing what unique items they have like rock candy. A special treat I remember when I was a kid.  This of course it not a healthy choice but for something fun and unique it’s the perfect out of state gift to take back home.We would buy this candy as a gift to give out to any friends and relatives that were visiting us. We would also decorate birthday cakes with this candy.

Or honey. We use honey in our breakfast banana smoothies. There are several local farmers in the area that have been selling honey for decades, passing it down generation after generation. Honey is another product you have to be very careful about. Most of the honey in the USA that is stocked in the major grocery stores is imported from China. There are reports out there about China’s honey not being pure, that they mix it with harmful chemicals that may cause cancer. The honey coming from China is also mixed with mostly corn syrup. Think about how we are giving this stuff to our children and it isn’t really honey. You have a better chance of finding pure honey at a farmers market.

At this farmer’s market there was a huge variety of trail mix. The perfect food  for all you outdoor types. Just throw it in your back pack when you are out hiking.

Every Christmas I make my Swedish butter cookies and Maple syrup is one the key ingredients that makes them so yummy. You don’t need a lot either, just a tablespoon will do it.

Fresh bread is always better to eat but you have to be careful when you buy it because it turns fast from not having preservatives in it. Sometimes we are so busy we haven’t had time to make fresh bread ourselves so we will buy some buns for road trip sandwiches.

Those bags of buns last days and days, weeks without turning. Meanwhile any fresh bread we have needs to be eaten up before it does turn. When that happens we just toss it to the chickens to be turned into eggs later. It is frightening to see those store bought buns stay the same day after day after day, what the heck makes them last so long anyway.

You can never have too many tomatoes. We love tomatoes in our home. Eating lots of tomato products is good for your heart.

Oh…and salsa. YUMMY, I love salsa but not too hot. We always get mild.

This is different, apple salsa. I have never heard of this type, wonder if it’s hot.

Peanut butter is a another favorite staple of ours.

And lots of chocolate and nuts.

Hope you all enjoyed this shopping trip with us. Happy shopping adventures everyone. Good food is out there, just have to read the labels and do the research.

“ There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to accept what is true.”

Soren Kierkegaard

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