Farmer's Market entry

Farmer's Market banner, displaying the days and time it's open

-          It’s a nice weather here in Garden Grove, and just around 11am is when I arrived at the Farmer’s Market.This Farmer's Market is located in Garden Grove Boulevard and Historic Main Street. In comparison to the Farmer’s Market in Irvine, the one in Garden Grove is a lot smaller, since not a lot of people go here as much.  The merchants here are mostly consisted of Mexicans, with a few asians, and some whites.  I saw some of the labels on the fruits and vegetables, and one thing that caught my eye was the location of the where they got the food from; Oxnard, CA.  I asked the worker where Oxnard was located, and he told me it was located in Central Valley, so I automatically thought “oh okay, it’s central California.” I also asked him how the food get transported here, and he said “well I usually drive with a truck, back to back 3 times a week, but it’s fine, I like it.” Can you imagine, driving about 4 hours back to back from Central Valley to Orange County? Not only do you have to drive over 100 miles to get to your destination, but you  also have to face traffic in the freeway, and humid weather in that Central Valley. 

Sweet Strawberries, grown in Oxnard, CA

 Food samples of plums, peaches, strawberries, etc.

Wide selection of vegetables

Along the aisle of fresh fruits to take the heat away from me, I got to try some white nectarine and yellow nectarine, which tasted pretty sweet and refreshing.  I did not see any meat or seafood products there, so this farmer's market has purely fruits, vegetables, popcorn, basically any food except for the meat.   One thing I noticed at the market was that there was a fan, with water constantly spraying over the vegetables; I thought that was a good way to keep the products fresh and clean, avoiding the heat wave from the sun.  One of the things Pollan said in his text In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto is to "eat well grown food from healthy soils." (169)  He basically wanted us to eat food that is grown on soil that is healthy, where nothing is processed or modified.  Looking back at all the food that I have tasted at the market, the fruits tasted really fresh, and most of the food were grown in central California where most of the farms are located.  Because farmer's market is based on season, summer is usually the season where the farmers go into hard labor to plant seeds and fertilize them with good soil.

Chile Lemon Nuts

Variety of nuts sold at Farmer's Market

Besides the fruits and vegetables sold at the market, I decided to try some of the nuts that the merchants were sampling off.  If you look at one of the pictures I took with the Chile lemon nuts, that tasted pretty hot and sour, but in a good way.  I looked at the prices for these nuts, and I was not as surprised as how expensive it is: $4 per pound.  I notice that a lot of these items at the farmer's market are moderately expensive, because these are items that are grown organically.  Unfortunately, I did not buy anything here at the market because they were a bit pricey for me, but at least I got to try out some samples!

24 Hour Food Diary

 

BREAKFAST 

Whole Milk, White Rice, Hawaiian Bread, and Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks with Rib Meat glazed with Sweet Bourbon sauce

In the morning, I start my day with a huge breakfast that consists of cooked white rice, bourbon chicken, Hawaiian bread, and whole milk.  I bought the whole milk from Albertsons, and it’s got 160 calories total, 80 calories from fat specifically.  This milk was processed at Plant Stamped, but still gives the usual Vitamin D, pastureurized, and homogenized milk. I also bought the Hawaiian bread from Albertsons, with a total of 100 calories, along with some unnatural ingredients like calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, ammonium sulfate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, etc.   I got the bourbon chicken from Costco, and this chicken does not have any preservatives and fillers. It has 180 calories total, with 60 calories from fat.  Some ingredients are unnatural; this chicken has sodium phosphate, dextrose, autolyzed yeast extract, malic acid, etc, but it contains egg, soy, and wheat, so that gives off a healthy source of protein.  I find it disturbing to see the ingredients in making this Hawaiian bread and Bourbon chicken because I never usually pay attention to the ingredients inside the foods that I eat on a daily basis until I started this food diary.  Overall this chicken has failed to prove Pollan’s advice about eating food; to not eat food that your great great grandmother would not recognize.   

                                                                         SNACK:

Chewy's Chocolate Chip granola bar

    LUNCH

Arrowhead water, White Rice, and cooked beef with asparagus

In the afternoon I had a little chewy Chocolate chip granola bar to munch on as a snack.  It contains 100 calories total, with 30 calories from fat, and there is a ton of ingredients into making this Chewy granola bar, so that has failed to pass Pollan’s test in determining what to eat ever y day.  For lunch I ate cooked beef with cooked asparagus, using corn oil, and white rice again.  The beef was put in the freezer so that it would last longer until the day it was cooked, and the rice was cooked from a rice cooker, in which these grains of rice has no processing at all.  This is the usual Vietnamese meal that I eat whenever I'm craving for beef, vegetables and rice altogether. 

                                                                       DINNER

Regular drinking water, cooked Beef, salad consisted of tomatoes and iceberg lettuce, homemade french fries, and ketchup as a condiment

Fresh peaches, one whole mango, and one whole banana

Fresh cucumbers

For dinner, I had a huge meal with a variety of nutrients; I ate homemade French fries, salad consisted of tomatoes and Iceberg lettuce, along with cooked beef, with ketchup as a condiment. I drank water as a beverage, and for my definition of dessert, I ate fruits like peaches, mango, and banana.  All of the fruits were fresh from an Asian supermarket that I go to for grocery shopping, and were purchased recently.  Around my late night, I eat some cucumbers to improve my skin and also as a way to solve my hunger situation.  These cucumbers were also bought from an Asian supermarket that I usually go to in my area, and they were not processed of any sort, so this dinner makes up the point about eating plants mostly for some parts.  

In Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, he argues that everyone should avoid the Western diet in order to benefit their health in the long run, as one of the rule of thumbs he said “we should simply avoid any food that has been processed to such an extent that it is more the product of industry than of nature.”   Basically he wants everyone to eat food that is true to their nature, like plants, but not modified plants.  Throughout the 24 hour documentary of the foods that I have consumed, I feel a bit alert about the ingredients in what I eat because I have been eating food that has been processed, but I did eat food that is naturally made.  I have been cooking for myself since summer session started at UCI, and even though I have been improving my cooking skills, I have not been improving my way of choosing what to eat. Looking back at the pictures of the food that I have been eating all day, it made me realize how much improvement I need to make to balance out my meals on a daily basis.