Everyone has little things that they find irritating.

This can be anything from dirty socks being left on bedroom floors, to people parking their car in a space on an angle so you can’t open the door, let alone get in your car! Personally I find it increasingly annoying when I pop to the local supermarket to do my weekly shop, and all the sell-by dates are the day after tomorrow. How can we possibly budget or eat healthily when we walk into the supermarket and the peppers you need for Friday night’s tea will go off by Tuesday?

I have been racking my brain for a solution to this irritant. We all know that buying food produced locally has been promoted tremendously recently, yet we still find ourselves wandering around the shops, trying to find produce from the back of the shelf with a slightly better sell-by date than ‘tomorrow’.

I then find myself in a position of frustration, which is further developed by the fact that said fruit and veg, is not only ‘near death’ it is not actually truly fresh. It is doused in pesticides, boxed up and transported for days in a lorry, eventually too reach the shelves. Although the produce is beautifully presented on the supermarket shelves, I cannot help but wonder how and when it was produced, and how long it has taken to arrive in my local store.

This leads me to the solution to our fresh produce dilemma. Why not visit Risby Indoor Farmers Market. Risby Indoor Farmers Market will take place at Risby Village Hall?

Here are the reasons why:

To enjoy truly fresh produce it is necessary to shop at least once a week. Although some vegetables will survive a week without assistance, it can often be necessary to give some fruit and veg a helping hand to extend its sell-by date. The fresher the produce when you buy it, the longer it will survive. If you buy from a Farmers Market rather than a grocery store, you are sure to be buying produce that was picked yesterday rather than imported from all over the place.

The best way to accomplish a healthy eating plan and food budgeting is to plan ahead. Decide what meals you plan to make for the week. Keep in mind that some fruit and veg is likely to last days and some can happily keep for a week or so. Perhaps think about incorporating spinach and spring greens into the first half of your week’s meal plan as these are delicate and are best enjoyed nice and fresh. You will also find that eating juicy fruits and tomatoes within a couple of days of purchase is when they are bursting with flavour, so perhaps make a fruit crumble or a delicious blue cheese and spring green risotto early on in the week.

Vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, parsnips, kale and potatoes can last for well over a week if stored correctly. Why not make a delicious pasta dish towards the end of the week and incorporate kale, garlic and chilli all of which you are sure to find at Risby Indoor Farmers Market.

If you are pushed for time and don’t want to be cooking every night then another way of preserving the goodness within your produce is to batch cook and then freeze the food until you are ready to eat it. The key to preserving the fruit and vegetables is storing them correctly. The brilliant thing about Risby Indoor Farmers Market is the opportunity it provides to speak directly to people who have a wealth of knowledge with regards to the produce you are purchasing. Buying from your local Farmers Market is the easiest way to ensure that you are eating the freshest, seasonal and local produce.

So the question is, are you ready to start supporting local agriculture and farmers? Why not pop along to Risby Indoor Farmers Market on Saturday 4th August between 10am and 2pm and start fuelling our bodies with goodness?