Marché Fermier: Mandy Trudeau gets us thinking about nourishing our bodies right

Here are a few agricultural concepts we should all brush up on: raised on pasture, free range, fresh and seasonally grown, fossil fuel dependence and the list goes on. If these are foreign to you, perhaps I should sound off the alarm: there is a war being waged with regards to the food we put in our bellies, and factory farming is just the tip of the iceberg. The economic, social, environmental and health benefits to ditching industrially produced grub in order to get your fruits, vegetables and assorted produce at a local farmers’ market are so numerous, you’d need a six-credit university course to get through them all. Thankfully, Marché Fermier coordinator Mandy Trudeau, who also works part-time at vegetarian café La Lumière du Mile-End, gives us the lowdown on sustainable agriculture.

What got you interested in the local market? My personal interest lies mostly in the nutritional aspect. When you’re buying food locally, it hasn’t been picked when it’s unripe, which is the case with a lot of the fruits and vegetables that you get at your regular grocery store – they ripen en route. At the market, they’ve really been picked that day or the day before, and they’ve had the chance to develop all the nutrients, minerals and vitamins that they should have.

Is there any good literature on the subject that you’d recommend? The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. It’s a study he conducted over 20-odd years about the benefits of eating a plant-based diet and how it’s been proven to eliminate or reduce certain diseases. It also argues about how our Western diet is a diet of excess and that’s a big problem which the general public doesn’t really know about. 

Pre-Industrial revolution, farmers’ markets here were widespread. There were no middlemen; you had a more direct contact with the providers. Now you look at places where souks and town squares have never disappeared, countries in Latin America and the Middle East. Why is that not part of our culture? I think climate is partly the reason, but also big business. There’s a lot of bullying that goes on in big business. Companies like Monsanto make it really difficult for small producers to remain autonomous. Quite a few documentaries in recent years have really taken the mask off what’s really going on.

Marché Fermier
Thursdays and Sundays until October 23
5039 St-Dominique, in front of Lahaie Park | Laurier Metro | marchefermier.ca