Local, fresh and grown with care is what I value when it comes to my food. I feel so blessed to have farmers markets all around the Asheville area with hard working farmers providing fresh produce. Once a week I try to get to one and stock up on what they have. One of the first things I’ve learned through my nutrition studies is the basic model of choosing food to benefit the body. Food can either be beneficial or depleting to health, sounds like a no brainer that you would want it to be beneficial.
Healthy Model for choosing food:
-Whole Foods
-Diversity
-Fresh Foods
-Seasonality
-Plant-based eating
-Chemical free foods
-Staple foods
The rules are based on the food itself, no surprise. Lots of “healthy diet” plans are particular food based on a calorie count with a lot of restrictions. Though when you base your diet around whole foods you don’t have to sweat if it’s beneficial to your health or not. Whole food is not altered in any way from its originally state. Then it’s used to create different types of food with the original ingredient preparing it with other
whole foods. What a meal!
The farmers markets provide a great opportunity to get most of the food that fits into the model in one place! Nothing there will be processed, only whole food from the earth and a loving hand. Fresh is key and all produce there is fresh and in season. You can find tons of produce for plant-based eating. That doesn’t mean cutting meat totally from your diet as assumed with the words “plant-based”. Plant-based eating simply means that on any given day you eat more plant-based foods than animal products. Of course that is your choice to eat meat or not. Personally I get fresh farm eggs and the occasional red meat or liver from the farmers there. The meat couldn’t be any better farm to table, which is the best quality of animal products to eat vs. the meat industry. I will not get meat from a grocery store, I am extremely picky about the meats I eat and if you’re interested in this I can write a blog on that a little down the road. The west market has a new vendor I hope to see stay and that is a fellow that brings in fresh seafood! Straight from the ocean from his fisherman. I like that option as well. When shopping at the grocery store I’ll only buy organic because who the hell knows what that food has been through, but i have more faith in buying from the farmers market without the organic labeling.. Which you can always ask the farmers about yourself, they are usually the ones selling it.
You want food that is fresh so it retains all the vitamins and minerals it has to offer. As food ages its nutrients degrade. Fresh and in season produce contains the most potent nutrition available. Eating seasonal refers to food that is in harmony with nature, helping us adapt to things like climate change. Picked off the vine and brought to the farmers market, there’s not much travel between here and there with local farmers. Food is flourishing with available nutrients. Unlike in the grocery store where food is often picked green and unripe to be shipped long distance to be fresh in the market. That food contains less nutrients than a farmer who brings it straight from home. Diversity in healthy food will certainly increase the potential for a person’s health, insuring them to get a full range of vitamins and minerals.
I’m not writing this to say you should ditch your grocery store and only shop at farmers markets to be healthy, or that eating a strawberry in winter is useless. What I’m saying is this is what I’ve learned is the most efficient way to get the best out of the food we eat. And it’s not all or nothing; personally I shop 50/50 farmers market to grocery store because that works with my schedule as of now. I feel it is important to share knowledge because it is most important to be informed for the choices we make! AMEN!
Now to the even better stuff: The Asheville farmers market scheduling as of 2017:
- WNC Farmers Market- open year round
570 Brevard Road
Asheville, NC 28806
- Asheville City Market- Saturday’s 8-12
54 N Market St.
Asheville, NC 28801
- Rivers Art District Farmers Market- Wednesday’s afternoons 2-6
175 Clingman Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
- North Asheville Tailgate Market- Saturday 8-12
UNC – Asheville Campus
Asheville, NC 28801
- East Asheville Tailgate Market- Fridays 3-6
954 Tunnel Road
Asheville, NC 28805
- West Asheville Tailgate Market- Tuesday’s afternoons 3:30-6:30
718 Haywood Road
Asheville, NC 28806
- Black Mountain Tailgate Market- Saturday’s 9-12
130 Montreat Rd,
Black Mountain, NC 28711
- Weaverville Tailgate Market- Wednesdays 2:30-6:30
60 Lakeshore Dr.
Weaverville, NC 28787
Keep in mind the farmers markets are seasonal themselves. I believe they run through October. The WNC is open all year round.