Building Awareness at a Local Farmer’s Market, and Making Spring Veggie Soup!

Excited that this practicum has aligned with the opening of the summer farmer’s markets in Vancouver, I went to one the past two weekends. 

I arrived there both times by self-propelled transport (as I currently enjoy a community bike membership), ready to have life-altering, in depth conversations about the climate footprint awareness and environmental activism that is bound to be present at such events. 

In some ways, I was pleasantly surprised and learned some new information. I was informed about irrigation and tilling methods with one farm that prevented excess water evaporation. I was told by one local cider brewery about snap off can packaging connectors that can be reused repeatedly. With this same brewery, I was told as well of the challenging choice of choosing cans over glass because chipped bottles will not be accepted for recycling. I was told, honestly, by another farm, they had no idea of their environmental policy, but would I like the farm owner’s personal phone number? In short, there were, refreshingly, people who were receptive and friendly and open to this dialogue, and the space in conversation was safe enough for these people to share that they didn’t have all the answers, too. 

In other ways, I found myself questioning how great grass-fed beef is environment-wise but didn’t have the gumption to approach vendors of such products. In lieu of this reluctance, I did find this article which answered some of my questions (briefly, grass fed beef can emit MORE CO₂  than industrial beef 🙁).

I did approach one stall, though, selling sausages, where the vendors proudly declared that their meat comes from Fraser Valley vendors but couldn’t comment on the environmental policies of those vendors. My impression is there was a defensiveness there that detracted from solutions-oriented dialogue and next time I will see how I can choose my words more carefully to proactively address such an occurrence.

Upon reflection, I drew something positive from each of these interactions. Even if answers weren’t immediately forthcoming, I know the conversations provoked thoughtfulness and awareness, and if not an instant motivation, then perhaps an eventual motivation to spark action/change. Of course should I cross paths the same vendors in the future I’ll be sure to direct them towards Possible By Design’s Planetary Action Atlas Resource so once that motivation is there, they can be guided towards next steps.

Affordability-wise, some of the prices are slightly higher than the grocery stores, but I can testify the produce tasted better, the experience felt more positive than in a grocery store, and there were examples of bulk purchases that helped financially. 

Here is my haul, for example, of $15 dollar's worth of produce, plus a small squash that was also reasonably priced (sadly I did not take note of the price per lb however I believe it was either 1.99/lb or 2.99/lb). My cat couldn’t help but photobomb 😊.

With a few extra ingredients I either had on hand (spices) or picked up at the grocery store (ginger and almond milk) I was able to make a quick roasted vegetable spring soup.

Here is the recipe: 

Ingredients: 

3 carrots

3 beets

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

About 1cm of ginger root. 

1 squash

Fennel, cumin, oregano, onion, garlic, pepper, turmeric, olive oil

Steps:

Briefly preheat oven to 425 degrees (Thoroughly preheating the whole oven wastes energy, but my toaster oven could not accommodate this many vegetables). 

Line a rack with (compostable, I checked) parchment paper. Slice carrots and beets into pieces  no more than 1-2cm thick, and break apart peppers into thirds or quarters as per the photo. Cut the squash lengthwise into thirds. Drizzle with olive oil and add pinches of spices according to preference.

Roast on lower and then upper rack for 20 minutes each, opening the oven 2x to flip vegetables.

Hand blend, then add almond milk according to preference (I didn’t measure, approximately ½ a cup) and, if you can, top with fresh garden thyme. 

I let the vegetables cool before blending, especially since the squash needed peeling, so I then reheated the soup on the stove before adding the almond milk. 

Voila!

Enjoy 😊