Today we woke up early and went to the Des Moines farmer’s market. I have been to farmer’s markets before but each one has something different to offer and Des Moines is a fairly big city, leading me to believe that the farmer’s market would be extensive. I bought some kettle corn from a local vendor who I didn’t interact with much which was very tasty. Next I went over to a vendor that was making all raw vegan food, which I was especially excited about. While I was there, I ended up buying some raw vegan tacos, some beet lemonade, and an aronia berry cup. I had never actually heard of aronia berries before, and learned that they were native to North America and were a health food that is on a current rise in popularity. After eating at the raw vegan place, I went over to Big Daddy’s barbecue sauce stand and bought some barbecue sauce from Big Daddy’s grandson himself. The last thing I did at the farmer’s market was talk to a man selling nettle tea about how he grew nettles and had just cut the tops of them the night before so the tea that he allowed me to sample was made with extra fresh nettles. I think overall I really like the idea of purchasing my food from farmer’s markets and would like to do more of it in the future. As far as safety of the food goes, I do not really trust the government to tell me what is safe to put in my body so the fact that there might not be as many government regulations on food sold at farmers’ markets does not bother me. The only downside I could see to them is that the food could be more expensive than that at a conventional grocery store, thus making it harder for those in the lower economic classes to shop at something like a farmers’ market.

I think the other thing I really enjoyed about today was riding in Mr. Friest’s tractor with him while he planted soybeans. We learned a lot about how farm equipment works and precision agriculture on our second day so it was really interesting to see a lot of that information in action on the farm. It really amazed me how complicated and precise farming has gotten, compared to what it used to me. While I knew that more technology was utilized in the farming industry, I did not know that it was utilized to the extent that it is.