Seven Smart Farmers’ Market Suggestions
(NAPS) — A healthy, well-balanced diet is a critical part of overall health and can help prevent many chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
Fortunately, eating a healthy diet can be easier and more fun than many realize. Adding fruits and vegetables from your local farmers’ markets can help.
“As a physician, I know that a diet built around fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables is the cornerstone of preventive medicine and a key to people’s overall health,” said Dr. Preston Maring, a physician at Kaiser Permanente and a champion for locally grown food who has worked to develop one of the first hospital-based farmers’ markets at Kaiser Permanente medical facilities. “One of the best ways to include fresh produce in your diet is to shop at local farmers’ markets. Eating locally grown food is good for us, our children, the farmers who grow it, as well as the environment.”
Dr. Maring has developed some simple suggestions to help you at the farmers’ market and at home:
Get Inspired
Introduce new vegetables and fruits into your diet or reinvent an old dish using different produce; let the vegetables and fruits in season inspire new creative meals.
Follow a Better Diet
When shopping at farmers’ markets, it will become easier to manage a healthy diet and improve overall nutrition and well-being. A healthy diet based on foods from a farmers’ market can keep blood pressure and cholesterol from climbing and lower the danger of developing diabetes.
Cook for Your Health
Shopping at farmers’ markets leads to cooking at home. It’s more economical and much easier to take charge of exactly what’s in your diet.
Support The Community
When buying from a farm or farmers’ market, you’re helping ensure that the farm is economically viable and that local produce will be available year after year. Small farms have played a leading role in reintroducing many varieties of fruits and vegetables that were virtually abandoned when large-scale agriculture came along.
Eat by Season
The most beautiful, best-tasting and most economical foods are usually the ones that are in season. The farmer has spent months nurturing the vegetables and fruits to the moment of perfect ripeness.
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