Living Lightly and the Downtown Farm Stand

The Downtown Farm Stand is proud to once again participate in the second annual Living Lightly Fair! A FREE resource fair for sustainable lifestyles, it is aimed at educating East Central Indiana residents about practical ways to live more sustainably, saving money and resources for themselves and future generations. The fair is this Saturday, September 20th, 9 a.m.-9 p.m., at Minnetrista in Muncie. Parking is available at the fairgrounds.

I will be participating in two ways at the fair this year, I will be a food vendor during lunch and I am a presenter from 5 - 6 pm in the Theater. Please come and check out the fair and support The Downtown Farm Stand while you're there in the following ways...

Lunch - I will be selling chicken or veggie fajitas outside during lunch from 11:45 am to 1:15 pm or sold out, whichever comes first. The chicken will be from The Farm Stand and is from the fabulously sustainable Gunthorpe Farms in Lagrange, Indiana. All other food ingredients will sustainable local, or organic, and very tasty... I look forward to seeing you there!

Presentation - I will be speaking from 5 - 6 pm in the Theater at Minnetrista. The theme will be about "Building a Sustainable Local Food System". What it is, what are the benefits, the obstacles, and what can we, as individuals, do to contribute to creating a local sustainable food system. I hope to have a lot of Q & A and some great interaction from the audience. In short, let's show the organizers of the fair, and our area leaders how important sustainable agriculture and food issues are to the people of Delaware County by showing up to my presentation. Thanks for your support!
Open Sundays

Our first two Sundays have gone really well and we look forward to seeing you at the store on Sundays. It is already helping in managing our produce by having the store open an extra day, so this is just a reminder we are now open 12 - 5 pm on Sundays. Thanks again for the support!

The Best Food

This is a good time for a reminder to tell those of you new to the e-mail newsletter that we have the best food available anywhere in East Central Indiana! Quite a claim to make I know. Why do I feel comfortable making such a claim? Because we are truly different than other grocery stores. Our products are chosen because of their attributes. Do they give more back to us other than just empty calories? Are they the most nutritious? Do they taste really good? Do they contribute to building a healthy environment instead of detracting from it? Does their production improve the lives of the people that produce it instead of exploiting them because they are desperate for money?

These are all questions that we can answer yes to at The Downtown Farm Stand. We strive to buy local and organic food produced sustainably whenever possible. It is our goal to build a local sustainable food system. If we can't find things locally, we fill in the gaps with products from highly responsible regional producers.

Companies like Eden Foods and Organic Valley that promote and are philosophically behind organic and sustainable agriculture. Companies that purchase from family farms that pay their employees fair wages. When we buy products from other areas of the world we look for Fair Trade Certified products that give back to communities. Every out of area product in our store is certified organic - not just "natural". I know of no other store that is just like us. We look forward to getting know you all better in the coming months and we hope to continue to wow you with great products and that have added values.

Good Clean & Fair

That was the theme at the National Slow Food Conference this year. I wanted to send a link to an article in the Washington Post that detailed this years event. A great article about a great conference. All of my food and agriculture mentors were there from Alice Waters, to Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Rick Bayless and more.
The final quote at the end says exactly what I was saying above ...
"What we're trying to do is create a place where people can come together and celebrate a values-driven food system," said Anya Fernald, the event's executive director. "We have to take it one step at a time."


That's about it for this week, see you at Living Lightly,

Dave Ring


The Downtown Farm Stand, 125 E Main St
Corner of Main and Mulberry, Downtown Muncie
765-288-3775

Hours: Monday - Saturday - 10:00 am - 7:00 pm, Open Sunday! 12 - 5 pm

We have a lot of parking available right on Main street in front of our door, also in the two hour city lot right behind the building with access off of Jackson, and in the surrounding parking lots. If you need help finding these areas, just ask! Many people find we are very convenient if you need to get in and out quickly and do not have time to walk through a big parking lot and wander through a huge store. You can always find a friendly face to ask for help!

Please tell them you saw it on munciedowntown.com