In praise of the shops in the farmhouse 🆙

Buy in the farmhouse today it is an increasingly widespread reality.

There are various reasons that push people to no longer slip into noisy supermarkets or hypermarkets and instead turn in search of a peaceful oasis outside the city where, in addition to milk, flour, rice and pasta, you can also find cheese, jams, fruit and vegetables in season, perhaps even grown according to the rules of biodynamic agriculture, permaculture or synergistic vegetable garden!

Anyway, the choice to shop directly from the producer is a conscious, ethical, sustainable choice and that helps the territory and its inhabitants to grow and get to know each other in harmony.

Why buy in the farmhouse?

It's cheaper.
You can find fresh and seasonal organic products, with a decidedly different flavor than those frozen and matured in greenhouses or worse chemically.
On Saturday afternoons I prefer to go for a ride in the countryside with family or friends, rather than going crazy, wandering around and queuing in the supermarket.
The farmer-shopkeeper who is there is a nice person and often meetings, conferences, courses and ad hoc events are organized in the farmhouse, designed for young and old.
I can also meet other like-minded people.
I have the opportunity to see (and to introduce my children to!) The animals that make milk and the fields that produce vegetables.
It is sustainable, it does not pollute with sacks and bags, I can use baskets and crates.
I love to consume zero kilometer products.
Natural is better: less sugar, fewer preservatives and dyes, fewer sulphites, less pasteurizing and who more (or less!) Has more!
In some cases, I, with my family, can go directly to pick vegetables in the garden, smell the scent of the earth, touch what I will eat.
I take advantage of it for lunch or dinner outside, on a farm or in the farmhouse itself.
I breathe a little less polluted air and why I don't have to dress like to go to the office, but I can get dirty, put on my boots, be natural inside and out!
Last but not least: because learning cancels boundaries and a change of air, learning to take care of yourself, your loved ones and your world, is good for the mind, body and heart!

They are not enough? These and, if you think about it, others a thousand reasons are already making you think which farmhouse to go to next Saturday. Do not worry, for each region and city the internet comes to meet you, providing dedicated pages with lists of producers and the products they sell.

Here, in the province of Milan, Metropolitan City offers a roundup of seats, from A to Z.

The Products at km 0 site is a real search engine that will allow you to locate the nearest point of sale, there is also a version for the mobile phone. The same thing offers the Agraria.org site.

Organic farming in the country, growth in contrast

What does the shopping in the farmhouse consist of?

So, point one, spending in general must be thought out and organized in a new way. That is: I don't go to buy everything in a single non-place, but fragments and in search of quality: better quality both of life and of the product.

It will be, for example, a planning of this type:

on Saturdays we go around the farms, three or four near me where I can find everything I need for the week to come (for example milk, cheese, eggs, vegetables and fresh fruit, flour, pasta, various seeds, jam, honey, wine);
on Tuesday, when I leave work, I dedicate it once a month to detergents: ecoricariche for every type of cleaning, from washing clothes to descaling gel, there are now dedicated shops in many cities, or I go to a single retailer that I know holds them; I never forget to stock up on baking soda and white vinegar.
One-off I re-evaluate theherbalist's shop downstairs that offers me tea and herbal teas of all kinds, as well as hair products without parabens and silicones, shampoo, conditioner and a delicate bar of soap or aleppo soap as a shower gel. L'water at the water house, if that of the tap is not quite so good.

What is missing? You will find out for yourself and learn how to go to the right place, maybe even just once every three months! Slowly you will realize that by doing so, as well as that save on spending, you will consume much less and you will throw away much less. And for the bread, if you really don't like to cook and self-produce it, rediscover the good old nearest oven.