Ripeness and freshness: select the best
The market provides a great opportunity to use hone your senses of sight, smell, touch, and taste. Along with your senses, use your good sense to get the best value. Here are some examples:

Use your Senses
Look at the colour, which can change as fruit and vegetables mature.
• Freshly picked corn should have a damp, pale-green stem.
• Fresh cauliflower should be a creamy-white colour.

Look at the stage of growth to determine if the produce was harvested at the optimum time.
• Asparagus should have tight-budded spears.
• Okra is most tender if 2½ - 3” or less in length.

Look at the general appearance
• Carrots with fuzzy white roots may have been stored.
• Fresh-looking leaves atop the bunch of beets indicates freshness.

Smell can be a good indicator of freshness.
• Is the fruit highly aromatic?
• Fresh cauliflower has a milder odour.

Taste is the best measure of value, so when vendors have samples, try one.
• Freshness means sweetness (once picked, sugar turns to starch) in many crops such as corn, peas, and asparagus.

Feel the firmness to measure freshness, as water content diminishes with time, leading to withered and limp-looking produce
• Fresh snap beans should snap easily!
• Eggplant should have a taut skin and flesh that bounces back when pressed.

Use your good sense
Think about seasonal availability to help sniff out old, or imported produce.
• Don't expect local sweet corn in June!
• Local peaches in October-forget it, they've likely been sitting in a cooler.
• Some good sources of information on seasonal availability are Harvest Ontario, BC Farm Fresh, P.E.I. Agriculture, NB Agriculture and Aquaculture.

Ask questions: a savvy shopper's checklist
Equip yourself with a few questions to make certain you get what you want. Here are a few examples:
• Did you raise this?
• What do you mean by natural?
• Is your farm certified organic?
• What do you mean by free-range?
• When did you pick these?
• May I try a piece?

Knowing how to shop wisely will see that you come home from market with quality food and value for your money. But be open to the unexpected, which is one of the joys of marketing.

Passionate about local food? Click here to read an excerpt from the book, The 100-Mile Diet

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