Andrew Sheng- My visit to the Green Festival (Environmental Festival)

My visit to the Green Festival (Environmental Festival)
To my surprise the “Green Festival” which was held at the L.A convention center was really enjoyable, I came in expecting bad tasting samples, boring speeches and environmental fanatics trying to push their beliefs on me. Instead I found the opposites. I experienced the same feeling when I used to visit Costco, running to sample area to sample area trying to get as many I possibly could. The people giving presentation weren’t people reading off a paper but instead panels of speakers, which spoke passionately about what they believed in, and in many cases the speakers, would disagree, causing a debate of some sort. While these were presentations were interesting, they were presentation even more fun, chefs were teaching audiences how to make a healthier desert and my favorite a chef combining his own musical talent and cooking. What started as just an opportunity for extra credit turned into fun day learning about how I could be more green. I did learn a lot and I am now able to take what I learned from the festival and combine it with what I learned in class.
Global warming is very prevalent, temperatures are hotter than they were before, there have been natural disasters in a short amount of time and those natural disasters have been some of the worst the world has ever had. One of the presentation that was given was one on farmers markets, it was suppose to be a chef showdown, but one chef didn't show up so it became one chef teaching and talking about the benefits of shopping at the farmers market. He also gave way a lot of free food at the end. What I learned was the shopping at the farmers market isn't only beneficial to the farmers selling their products, but to the community and even world as a whole. Farmers market goods are all locally produce, so there is much less transportation necessary thus healthier for the environment. I shop at the farmers market about once a month already, usually in Montrose but sometimes in Santa Monica as well but I should probably shop their more often. The problems I find shopping at the farmers market are inconvenience, since farmer markets are not open daily usually only weekly, it is hard to shop when you need that exact ingredient the day of.  The price is usually somewhat higher, but not outrageous … usually, so I don’t think that is a problem. Another problem is the selection, in Montrose the farmers market is quite small, so their selection is small, and therefore it is hard to shop as if you were shopping at a supermarket where they having almost everything you need. There are a lot of benefits to shopping at the farmers market as well; one being that it doesn't feel like shopping, it's more of a way of going out then a mindless task or errand. Also the food is fresh, and you meet the actual person growing it, which I feel is a good interaction. Although I already shop at the farmers market, I am going to try and do it even more often.