Where do you buy your vegetables? In the super market or farmers' market. I prefer to buy in the farmers' market. farmers' market's produce are most of the time organic. I avoid buying vegetables in the supermarket because it is industrial product, which may contain harmful substances.
I noticed that my parents buy vegetables both from the wet market and the supermarket. The supermarket ones are always cheaper, and you can always check out the freshness of the vegetables by checking them out thoroughly before buying it, so they buy from both stores.
I buy from both and Chinatown. I love to make tea from my Okinawan bitter melon. Only few places sell them. The freshest Okinawan bitter melon is from the farmer's markets around town which have specific dates and places to shop at. Time's Supermarket has bagged ones that's not as fresh as the farmer's market ones or Chinatown ones. I like Chinatown vegetables for they are almost as fresh as farmer's market vegetables. I love fresh vegetables. You can find at Chinatown or Oahu Market a lot of ethnic vegetables like mangosteen and dragon fruit when in season and is less like at farmer's market vegetables.
I usually buy vegetables from the supermarket. The best thing about supermarket is that we can choose the items we need, but at a farmer's outlet we are not allowed to pick it and sometimes they include rotten vegetables. So I stopped going to them. When it comes to organic factor I think even these farmers use chemical pesticides while growing vegetables. But there are special shops that sell pure organic vegetables. But its high price puts me off but I buy from them sometimes. I use a special washing liquid to get rid of pesticides on vegetables and fruits. I know it is not 100% perfect but it clears some of the poisonous substances from it. Peeling the skin of vegetables take care of the rest.
It is ironic that the farmer’s market prices are generally more expensive than the prices in the supermarket. And then I realized that most of the farm produce being sold in the farmer’s market are labelled organic, that’s the catch to the high prices. To be frugal, we only go to the farmer’s market when we want to buy something special like big crabs and exotic vegetables like fern. I have a suspicion that those vendors are just putting a label of organic to their wares so they can put a higher price tag. With the supermarket, their products have the assurance that it is fresh unless the vegetables are there in the shelf for a number of days already.
It is not true generally that those vegetables sold in the supermarket isn't organic. It is treated with chemicals. I know some big malls that are selling organic vegetables. Well, as to prices of those veggies, most vegetables at the supermarket are costly compared to the veggies sold by the farmers themselves.
You are very true. I know many organic vegetable and fruit sellers who use to buy it from far away markets and sell it at higher prices here. As you rightly pointed out they just fix a label on it and we fall prey to their trick. If I want to buy organic items I usually go to a Government certified shop. But still anybody can get a certificate nowadays as bribery is still a major issue here. I think the best way is to grow vegetables at home. I buy only a few items from open market as I can get daily vegetables from my kitchen garden. As I already said above I use a special cleaning liquid on vegetables purchased from open market.
I purchase them from the supermarket and some fruit stands some people make in some of the corners of the city. The corner stands claim to sell fresh fruit that are cultivated by them and to my surprise they are sold cheaper than the super market ones. I think the reason is because they have so much product they can afford to sell for cheap before they go bad.
I usually purchase fruit/vegetables grown by the people around my area and since they're fresh picks, they usually don't cost much as they want everything to sell. They also don't have to pay a location fee because the government doesn't care about unlicensed fruit/vegetable stands around here. That gives the people the ability to sell them as low priced as possible.
I normally buy from local farmers as well from wholesale vegetable markets for one week. The difference in branded stores and wholesale vegetable market is almost 30-40% and the local farmers coming to sell their produce outside our locality sell at even cheaper price because they do not have to deal through mediators.
