Thread: Farmers Markets, Organic Meat and Produce

Originally Posted by Three O'Three

Hi all. Anyone know any good farmers markets and family owned stores in the Waikato that sell more organically grow meat, poultry and produce? Doc's told me to clean up my eating, go organic.

Cleaning up the eating, as mentioned, is usually about the sort of food you eat - Healthier food is usually means less processed food. Farmers markets can be a good starting point for finding less processed foods such as fruit veges and meats ....You can get that from supermarkets too, but a lot of the cheaper foods are processed to make for longer shelf life (this one factor makes a big difference to cost for saleability)

My goal is to get below 100kg, 95 would be nice but unlikely. I've started more of a "less processed" diet, it's nothing extreme. I'm not working at the moment so have less money and more time I avoid takeaways and just try to cook with real ingredients rather than taking shortcuts, real butter rather than the blended spreads, make the sauce rather than buy a jar of it, etc. I don't have any food allergy's so I'm a bit cynical about all the labels (Organic, Gluten free, dairy free etc) and the dietary pros/cons they may have for people like myself.
The biggest thing for me was to stop snacking, Due to back surgery I've done zero exercise for 4 weeks and lost 10kg (hopefully not all muscle), once I'm able to start doing more I hope this dietary change will help the weight loss to continue while still helping my back/core.

Don't worry much about gluten free - all it means normally is substituting Oats, Wheat, Rye or Barley grains with either rice flour, a starch flour or one of the other naturally free from gluten flours and a certified facility and equipment/machinery that never goes near the gluten containing products. Usually it's a tax matter (i.e. more expensive than the other option due to the amount of extra bs involved).

The others are more of your issue, dairy free can mean a lot of other ingredients to substitute and all of them are more expensive than dairy sources. Organic can mean anything from grown with benign neglect to the full orchestra of sign off, testing, inspection and certification and everything in between.

I'm no expert, but think about it like this, in order of increasing diet changes:

1) At the very least stop eating highly processed foods, i.e. anything that isn't immediately recognisable as coming from an animal or plant or has additives.

2) Unless you do very physical work or a lot of exercise, cut out the carbs, all of them!

3) Go full keto, lots of forum posts about this.


Luckily as hunters, fisherman and growers, we can do this relatively cheaply.

Im an ex organic farmer. If its a NZ product and has bio-grow or assure quality certification then there will be no nasties in it. Its pretty rigorous. Paddocks are even tested for historical chemicals.
On saying that, the real benefit of organics- supporting it- is environmental. And mainly relates to insect and bird life, Water quality etc. which are more effected by chemical residues.
The conventionally farmed food you eat thats gone through a meat works or dairy company in NZ has such high restrictions on chemicals in the product that there really is no difference between that and organics.
Objectively the only other difference might be a slightly better quality product as organic farmers tend to have a lower stocking rate and need to have a higher level of care for the stock.

Originally Posted by MB

I'm no expert, but think about it like this, in order of increasing diet changes:

1) At the very least stop eating highly processed foods, i.e. anything that isn't immediately recognisable as coming from an animal or plant or has additives.

2) Unless you do very physical work or a lot of exercise, cut out the carbs, all of them!

3) Go full keto, lots of forum posts about this.


Luckily as hunters, fisherman and growers, we can do this relatively cheaply.

Be careful with #2. Carbs are a requirement for brain function, among other things in our bodies. Cutting down highly processed carbs or ultraprocessed foods containing them, yes but cutting all carbs out may do harm as well.

Your liver will magic up the glucose your brain needs from a variety of sources: fat and protein will do it. But its pretty demanding to stay away completely from carbs.

Originally Posted by whanahuia

Im an ex organic farmer. If its a NZ product and has bio-grow or assure quality certification then there will be no nasties in it. Its pretty rigorous. Paddocks are even tested for historical chemicals.
On saying that, the real benefit of organics- supporting it- is environmental. And mainly relates to insect and bird life, Water quality etc. which are more effected by chemical residues.
The conventionally farmed food you eat thats gone through a meat works or dairy company in NZ has such high restrictions on chemicals in the product that there really is no difference between that and organics.
Objectively the only other difference might be a slightly better quality product as organic farmers tend to have a lower stocking rate and need to have a higher level of care for the stock.

well said...very well said indeed.... cut through all the feel good bullshit and /\ sums it up perfectly

Originally Posted by XR500

Your liver will magic up the glucose your brain needs from a variety of sources: fat and protein will do it. But its pretty demanding to stay away completely from carbs.

Yeah - but note that glucose while a 'carb' is not the only complex carb needed apparently. Also your brain needs cholesterol and the body manufactures it to suit which is interesting when you look at the relationship between current thinking and advice on cholesterol and health...

its not real food till the paper bag goes clear !!