Shopping at home was starting to become an angst ridden affair for a veggie, eco-warrior
type like me. The aspiration to eat organic, fair trade, local and seasonal had become requisite. But the ability to tick all boxes proved difficult and that leaves you with the juggling act. Is it better to buy fair trade from Africa or organic from Spain? It's ideal to go to the farmers market but does this justify the 20 minute car ride each way to get there? Then what about size of Tesco threatening competition, but it's only a 3 minute walk away? These are rhetorical questions - if you send me the answers my head might explode.
Here it's a bit more straightforward. There are lots of stalls selling vegetables on your 
doorstep and you just pick the one you like the look of. The vegetables probably tot up cart miles not air miles, the seasonal seems to be a given (not very familiar with crop rotation in India but it would seem likely) and I guess fair trade is as good as the local market economy would allow. Organic is a bit trickier (well the answer would be yes but they probably wouldn't have understood the question). I did buy a carton of eggs with "ORGANIC" written in big, green letters. I only noticed the "like" placed in front in small, white letters when I got them home. I wonder what type of egg is "like organic" - again rhetorical question only.
There is of course the headache of haggling and still knowing that you'll be paying more than the locals. It's a refreshing change from the shrink wrapped, bar coded and uniform sized world of the local supermarket.
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