Planning a trip to the farmers market takes only a moment. There is no need for a shopping list or pre-planned menus. Decide to go because you know real food is good for you, and then go. Farmers markets offer an opportunity to talk one on one with local growers, to look them in the eye and have real conversations with them about their just-picked produce. It is common to have meaningful discussions with growers about lettuce varieties, or how to use nopalitos, or whether carrots deliver more nutrients raw or cooked.
What surprises many people is that fleeting moment of undeniable joy that surfaces as they approach the growers and their tables. It’s primitive, stung into being by the sight of gorgeous colorful vegetables and fruits laying on every grower’s table. They’re all raw, with no packaging covering their natural attractiveness. This is unlike the sights in the aisles of a grocery store where complex packaging often hides the food products for sale there.
Most such packaging, including the endless stream of plastic bags used to carry groceries home, is just so much waste, and ends up in the Valley’s landfills. Thoughtful people are making the effort to keep these items out of the landfills out of a concern for the health of the soil, water, and wildlife in our area. These people sort and collect plastic bags, number 1 and number 2 plastic containers, cardboard, newspapers, aluminum cans, office paper, and other items in order to take them to our local recycling center. This is a truly simple way for families to take care of their community.
Many people who shop at the Harlingen market bring their own reusable bags or baskets in order to avoid contributing to the overuse of plastic. For those who enjoy people-watching, it is interesting to observe the amazing variety of alternative bags shoppers are using to carry fresh food home from the market.
At this Saturday’s market, just in time for Valentine’s Day, we will have one non-food vendor who does even more than recycle plastic bags. Gabriela Conner, through her company Upcycle Way, actually designs and makes purses and shopping bags out of discarded plastic bags, and unique belts out of pull tabs from soda cans.
These products, made here in Harlingen, are Conner’s way of raising awareness of the value still present in items we habitually throw away. With the benefit of her local collection of plastic bags and metal pull tabs, she uses only the creative energy of her design talent and hand work to transform disposables into desirables. An almost negligible carbon footprint results from the production of her durable, must-have products.
Profits from Upcycle Way sales go toward educational programs for children, and toward a temporary flooring program Conner has set up to improve the living conditions of people who have only dirt floors in their homes.
