Healthier Eating Resolutions?

Clean and healthy eats are easily found at farmers market

New Year resolutions for healthier eating can be enforced when you shop at the Fernandina Beach Market Place farmers market. Located on North Seventh Street in historic Fernandina between Centre and Alachua Streets, this outdoor market is open from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., rain or shine. This true farmers market offers plenty of seasonal produce and clean foods like freshly baked breads made without preservatives, grass fed beef raised without antibiotics or hormones, and produce grown right here in Nassau County and Northeast Florida. You will find enough goodies to complete a smorgasbord at the Market Place.

I Love Pierogis has added kielbasa to their line up of delicious Polish foods, and JD Beef offers some of the finest meats you’ve ever tasted. Upstream Seafood brings wild caught Alaskan salmon, scallops that can’t be beat, and they have an amazing salmon dip that is sure to please any crowd. However, this time of the year, the fresh produce is the star of the show. Cabbage Creek Farms is located in Nassau County and they bring fresh mustard greens, kale, bok choy, and other winter vegetables. Kings Kountry Produce is located further south and offer a different variety of seasonal goodies as they still have squash, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, and a few berries. Boatright Farms is from Georgia and they have cabbage, potatoes, greens, and black eyed peas. Bacon’s Select Produce grows their produce in climate controlled greenhouses and their specialty is hydroponic lettuce. Butter-head lettuce, sold with the roots still intact, creates a longer shelf life and this lettuce stays fresh for up to two weeks. They also bring kale and seedless European cucumbers.

Lady Bug Gourmet has been out during the holidays, but she will be back with her jams and jellies, and they also have a booth, Kluckers, that is full of fresh yard eggs. Honey returns to the market this Saturday, as well as Jay’s Marketplace and their chopped olive salad, Square A Farms with their butter, milk, ghee and more, and Bunna Cafe’ and their fresh Ethiopian coffee.

Our booth with a cause is Amelia Lifelong Learning. They provide non-credit courses and other educational opportunities designed to enrich the lives of adults in our community. Classes and programs offered by Amelia Lifelong Learning are open to everyone with no requirements as to previous level of formal education. Amelia Lifelong Learning affords an opportunity to rekindle former interests and pursue new ones in a relaxed and congenial atmosphere without tests or grades. For more information, stop by their booth.

The Fernandina Beach Market Place farmers market is open every Saturday of the year, except for the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival – always held the first weekend in May – and you are always welcome to bring your well-behaved, leashed pets.

For the most recent information, find the Market Place on facebook.