Farmer's Market: Beyond Produce

Exploring Herbs and Flowers

Kale, zucchini, romaine lettuce, radishes, swiss chard – these are just a few of the vegetable staples that you can find each weekend at your local summer farmers market. Maybe you pick up the same vegetables each week, or maybe you’ve committed to adding at least one new vegetable to your mix. Either way, shopping at your local farmers’ market regularly is not only an excellent way to support local agriculture and reduce your carbon footprint, but it also serves as a great opportunity to discover new foods and explore new ways of eating and nourishing our bodies.

This month, we want to challenge and encourage you to look beyond the kale, zucchini, lettuce and swiss chard selections and instead commit to exploring two new areas of nourishment: herbs and flowers.

Herbs
We’re all familiar with basil, rosemary, ginger, and cinnamon, but do we know what they actually do for our bodies? A quick Google search can yield you a pretty good snapshot of their benefits, but we want to make knowing these herbal benefits easy for you and have therefore provided you with a quick reference chart that you can print and bring with you to the market or take a screenshot of on your phone. In general, herbs & spices are known for having a plethora of antibacterial and antiviral properties, and oftentimes provide more disease-fighting antioxidants than fruits and vegetables. Each individual herb packs within it its own specific benefits that promote health and prevent disease in different ways, so integrating as many of them as you can into your cooking is highly encouraged!

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Bonus Challenge: For your next farmers’ market visit, we challenge you to review the quick reference chart included and pick one (or two!) herbs that possess benefits that would be desirable for your diet, and then look for them at the market to bring them home and cook with.

Flowers
Flowers come in all sorts of varieties and look great in a vase, but odds are good that when you visit a farmer’s market, flowers aren’t on your ‘grocery list.’ But the unexpected health benefits of some flowers actually make them fantastic meal garnishes or active ingredients! Signet marigolds, nasturtiums, portulacas, and roses are all rich in Vitamin C; the greens of edible weeds like dandelion flowers are high in calcium, iron, and phosphorous, and the dandelion flowers themselves provide Vitamins A an C. Hibiscus flowers contain antioxidants that prevent cholesterol deposits and help aid liver disorders. Chamomile and lavender flowers help ease stress and promote sleep, and goldenrod relieves allergies and urinary tract infections and aids digestion. And then there are the common herb flowers, like basil and rosemary mentioned, and others like oregano, dill, and thyme, that all have the same nutritional benefits as their leaves that we commonly use for dry seasoning. You can probably already see that flowers really do offer a whole realm of their own nutritional possibilities!

Bonus Challenge: If you can’t find edible flowers like these at your local farmer’s market, search for them in the produce section of a health food style grocery store (like Whole Foods) or cooperative market but try to find some for your next grocery trip and integrate them into a recipe. Stumped for recipe ideas?  Try this one: Wildflower & Arugula Salad with Orange Blossom Vinaigrette & Farmer’s Cheese.

We hope that this information has sparked your interest in looking beyond the market produce and exploring herbs and flowers as active ingredients in your cooking. For more information about incorporating farm-fresh ingredients into your cooking, ask us about our seminar, 'The Power of a Plant-Based Diet.'