If it’s true that we are what we eat, then why not know the story behind the food we consume?

Farmers markets are all different but most of them have a common objective: To improve people’s lives by providing quality food from independent producers directly to the consumer. Whilst organic certification is costly to come by, many suppliers work on a trust basis and not only farm organically, but also avoid toxic additives, promote intelligent food consumption such as fair trade, and try to reduce carbon emissions and boost recycling. Most importantly, as Federico Arce from El Galpón says: “To let people know the story of the food they are eating, it’s important that they know what they are consuming.” Bravo!

There are plenty of markets to be found in and around Buenos Aires, but this week’s Top 5 aims to bring you the Farmers Markets dearest to our hearts.

Fruit for sale at El Galpon (Photo: Brian Funk)

1. El Galpón de Chacarita

Number one in our Top 5, El Galpón in Palermo is a hippie market that is both quirky and stylish at the same time. You come in through a free parking area, nestled between old rusty train tracks, to a bright yellow barn, an organic fruit and vegetable allotment and an outdoor barbeque and restaurant serving agro-toxic free meat.

The colourful interior has lime green tablecloths with flower arrangements that compete for your attention against various paintings and posters of The Beatles. Better than all of this, you feel like taking your shoes off and enjoying the positive vibe in a place where everyone smiles and takes the time to chat to you.

Created by former political prisoners, El Galpón is now a cooperative, where stalls all work together to maintain and provide for the space. They even contribute to the creation of homegrown compost to be used in the allotment.

But El Galpón had a rough start. “People didn’t used to want to come here because of the neighbouring slum, and the fact that they couldn’t see what is in here from the street,” says Victoria Angarita, who sells organic coffee from Full City Coffee House. “But now we have home delivery and word has spread about what we do.”

Walking around you will find food that is portioned and wrapped in recycled paper, aromatherapy incense sticks, homemade ice creams, washable and ecological feminine pads and a great variety of organic food. You choose what you want to buy, pay at a common till and collect your purchases at the end. And you can shop happily knowing that a portion of the profits go towards the maintenance of the barn. Just don’t forget to collect your purchases!

Wednesday and Saturday 9am to 6pm. For more information, click here.

Dietetica at Mercado Bonpland (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

2. Mercado Solidario Bonpland

There are two words to describe this market: community feel.

As you walk in, the sweet aroma of flowers from the florist at the entrance invades your senses and as you glide through stalls selling homemade wine, biodegradable washing powder, natural creams, nuts, granola and more, you can tell the workers are happy to be there.

“This is not just a job,” said Juan Pablo Pereira, one of the vendors from CECOPAF, an organisation that supports small scale agriculture. “This is a positive statement that we fight for better pay and working conditions to all farmers.”

What sets Bonpland market apart from the rest is its support of community projects. One of the shops is operated by a group of volunteers that run the Movimiento Popular La Dignidade, an NGO that works at improving the lives of disadvantaged people.

The sale of handmade clothes in the shop, fundraising events and public funds all help to support four free nurseries, after school tutorials, food charity programmes and an online television channel.

At the far end of the market, a door leads to the adjoining Bonpland Cultural Centre where the NGO works, but also where local gatherings happen. A community room hosts several social activities such as singing and yoga lessons or art and drama workshops, operated on a donations basis for anyone wishing to join in.

Fridays and Saturdays 10am to 8pm. For more information, click here.

Tofu Pates by Alejandro (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

3. Mercado Natural Punto Verde

Mercado Natural Punto Verde only opened at the beginning of this year and, as the smallest of our selection, satisfies the saying “it’s not size that matters, but what you do with it”.

In this case, it’s a clean, feminine place, and the most holistic of all. The food here is magnificent, from the ready-made mouth watering (flour-free, egg-free, milk-free and fat-free) wraps and delicious wheat-grass juices, to tofu pates and organic whole-wheat empanadas. The homemade chocolates are divine.

Beyond food and a basic fruit and vegetable section, you will also find meditation books, crystals and additive-free cosmetics. Patricia Oulton, who works at one of the stalls, also works with alternative therapies including Kirlian photography diagnostics and bio-energetic massages, which she will happily talk to you about.

This is a child-friendly zone, where kids can play with crayons and sheets of paper provided for them on tables in the middle of the market, and you can shop away.

The space offers clowning workshops from Monday to Thursday.

Fridays and Saturdays 10am to 7pm. For more information, click here.

Sabe la Tierra at San Fernando station on the Tren de la Costa (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

4. Sabe La Tierra

Hats off to this market: It’s charming and, if you live in the centre of Buenos Aires, the most exciting part of it is the journey to get there. Located in San Fernando train station along the route of the Tren de La Costa that takes you to Tigre – it’s a perfect excuse for a day out of the hustle and bustle of the city.

While sat on the train your eyes will glow at the sight of miniature stations, local parks, children’s playgrounds, traditional restaurants, tree lined avenues, suburban houses and mansions. You’ll either feel like you’re instantly on holiday, or lost in the perfect suburbia of the Stepford Wives.

In my case, as soon as I arrived I’d received invitations to move in with an alternative Christian community, join a yoga class, and sample several different types of organic honey. As a kind of connoisseur, I have to say it was the best I’ve tried from this Top 5!

“Our idea is to take care of our lands and take care of our bodies,” said Pablo Barrio, seller at Sol7 stall.

The market is bigger on Saturdays but you’ll find it less crowded on Wednesdays.

Wednesdays 10am to 4pm and Saturdays 10am to 6pm. For more information, click here.

The greenhouse and farm at Taller Verde (photo courtesy of Taller Verde)

5. Shop Online Delivery Services

If markets aren’t your favourite way to shop, or you live far from a farmers market but you’d still like to eat freshly produced food with a conscience – not to worry! A selection of websites including Tallo Verde, De la Huerta a su Mesa, and Puente del Sur, sell a variety of products from small, independent local producers and will deliver to your doorstep. The drawback is that you need to allow at least two days for your delivery to arrive, but it’s these two days that enable them to reach farmers directly and get the freshest foods.

Setting up a regular order is a good idea since to care for the environment, most have a minimum purchase amount and operate a rotation system delivering to the different areas of Buenos Aires on different days. Whilst you might get a little lost with the variety of products they have on offer, at least you won’t be short of options.

Some of the websites even feature recipes to help you turn your new non-toxic ingredients into delicious treats.

To shop online or over the telephone, with delivery to your door, we recommend visiting talloverde.com, delahuertaasumesa.blogspot.com or puentedelsurcoop.com.ar

Having trouble finding a healthy alternative to the obligatory medialuna and cafe con leche in Buenos Aires? Granola Mix offers a new and healthy way to have breakfast just the way you ordered.

Granola Mix, a Palermo-based company started in September by Marina Lidow and Adrián Carpintero Aras, offers customers in Buenos Aires the option of creating their own breakfast online and having it delivered to them in nine districts across the city.

Directed at expats and Argentines alike, Carpintero Aras says, “We wanted to introduce a new way to have breakfast. We try to make everything fresh so people can have something good tasting and healthy.”

Lidow, tired of picking raisins out of her cereal, says she wanted ingredients that weren’t readily available in Buenos Aires. As a result, the couple dehydrates most of the fruit used in their home-made granola, buys local and organic ingredients as often as possible, and makes sure all their products are delivered fresh.

While the custom granola remains the main product, Lidow and Carpintero Aras have plans for new products, too. Breakfast cookies, low-fat options, celiac-friendly granola bars, muffins and cupcakes are all in the works. Holiday specials are also coming up, so check online for special mixes. The Thanksgiving mix, which will include low-fat granola, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and walnuts, can be ordered now.

Apart from expanding the menu, Lidow says she sees Granola Mix continuing to grow as a business, “In the future, we’d like to expand. We don’t really have a shop right now,” Lidow said. “Maybe eventually do a yogurt and granola place where people can come and choose what they want to have for breakfast.”

For now, orders are placed online and delivered by bike or public transportation throughout the city.

Granola Mix customer and close friend of Marina Lidow, Dilini Weerasooriya says the delivery is part of the charm. “Adrian and Marina deliver all the products themselves, it’s a super Mom and Pop endeavour.”

Weerasooriya says all her friends have received granola bars or other products as presents. She maintains the quality is excellent because a balance of flavours is just right—something hard to find here.

“A lot of times there isn’t a lot of understanding between ‘health’ and ‘diet’ so you sometimes get flavours that are just too much. Hopefully we’ll see businesses like this one and healthy restaurants become more competitive with what’s normal right now.” Weerasooriya said.

Inspiration for Granola Mix came from Lidow’s craving for a United States’ style breakfast to be available here in Argentina. “I think people are a little more accepting of American things now,” Lidow said.

Weerasooriya maintains the best mode of communication between expats is other expats; that people want to talk about something that they think is good.

So while Granola Mix doesn’t have any direct competition, it’s only because there isn’t a huge market for breakfast in Buenos Aires yet. It’s only been a few months but Weerasooriya thinks the idea of Granola Mix is in the right hands for it to grow into a success, “Marina thought of the idea and launched it while I was gone for ten weeks and brought out something original. She’s one of the most intelligent girls I know and all she wants to do is cook!”

So, if paying about 13 pesos for a box of hard, dry 3Arroyos brand ‘Granola Chocolate’ doesn’t fit into the day, log on to www.granolamix.com.ar and make a fresh batch to be delivered right to your home or office for little more than you would pay at the local Coto or Disco for some boring variety of sugar-coated corn puffs.

Photo by David Vexelman

Imagine this scenario, if you please. It’s 8:37 on a Friday evening in Buenos Aires, and you are alone in your flat. The sun is setting lazily outside, but in the kitchen your pulse is racing. Six new friends will be arriving for dinner at 9 sharp, one of whom you are desperate to impress (perhaps your scary boss, or that beguiling creature you danced with at Niceto last night). You are ambitiously attempting a complex lamb concoction involving much stirring, sautéing and simmering. As you empty the $6 bottle of red you’re cooking with into one of the many gurgling pans on the stove, it hits you like a piano falling from a great height: you’ve got no wine.

After spending a few satisfying moments howling obscenities, banging pots together and cursing the day you were born, you can call 0800-Vino.

The only premium wine delivery service in Buenos Aires, 0800-Vino is the brainchild of ex-investment banker/entrepreneur/sommelier Nigel Tollerman. The concept is very simple: you dial their number, and an English- (and Spanish) speaking connoisseur recommends the perfect wine to compliment your feast in whatever price range you choose.

Within an hour the blessed bottles of vino appear at your door, wrapped in silver tissue with a wax seal. Best of all, you pay the same price you would have paid in a supermarket or vinotecca, and they even deliver ice!

The business, which was formally launched in April of last year, is set apart from the average dial-a-bottle service by the quality of the product and the personal advice that accompanies it. “I know my cellar inside and out. A basic philosophy of mine is that I sell what I drink and drink what I sell. If I don’t like something I don’t sell it,” Nigel tells me.

Thus, he has tasted each of the wines in his cellar from the $12.95 Malbec to the $1,000 vintage burgundy, which sounds like truly gruelling work. “I love my job. I have the best job in the world,” he grins.

The Englishman became passionate about wine while working at Threshers on his gap year and drinking with friends at St. Andrews University, and his interest in collecting was piqued while living in a dank, humid basement flat in central London. “It wasn’t great to live in, but it was a great flat to store my wine in.”

Now, his 0800-Vino cellar is the only correctly acclimatised wine cellar in all of Buenos Aires, keeping the temperature between 12 and 14°C and the humidity level at 70% to ensure that his stock remains in tip-top shape. It is so well acclimatised, in fact, that some of Buenos Aires’ most illustrious residents pay Nigel to house their personal collections. “If you don’t want to put your money in a Finnish bank, invest in wine,” he advises.

Photo by David Vexelman

The company works mostly in the high-end sector, serving consumers who are looking to fill their personal wine racks and appreciate some of the finest bottles the world has to offer. “The wine market in Buenos Aires is very competitive. There are a lot of bodegas serving a relatively small demand. There is vast over-supply, a dumping of wine on a massive scale. Bewildering amount of choice available to the consumer. You walk into the supermarket, see all these wines and think ‘where am I going to start?’” Dial 0800-Vino, and the problem is solved.

For those interested in wine education, each month approximately eight tastings take place in Nigel’s cellar. Some are available to the public, so give Nigel a call, drop him an email or check out the 0800-Vino facebook group for details. These draw a diverse range of clients, Nigel tells me: one peckish woman even turned up with her own slab of tofu, which she washed down with the various wines on offer. “And we have ponchos to protect you from the cold!”