Healthier, Minnesota-grown foods needed at State Fair

I'm headed to the State Fair again this year, and I sure hope I can get something to eat. Something good, I mean.

The fair has all this delicious homemade food on display in the Home Ec building that I'd love to eat, but can't, and then there's all these foodlike substances everywhere else that I shouldn't be eating.

Perhaps it's because I work with local and natural food for a living, but really, I think lots of other people are beginning to notice that we have a problem at the fair. I know that I could have lots more fun there if I could buy more real and local artisanal food.

Plus, I could help the local farmers who grow it reclaim their most-primal local event. As a bonus, more and more fairgoers could learn that natural food not only tastes good, it's less fattening.

A trend I'd call a food deevolution has caused our great fair to slowly morph from a local agricultural event to the current inundation of cheaply made, sugary globs of body-destroying, antifarmer corporate food.

The original purpose of the State Fair was to demonstrate the good fertility of the soil in our territory (the fair started before Minnesota was a state), and the bounty of delicious food it's possible to grow here.

All this to lure more farmers and merchants to the Northland. So abundant food has been a State Fair tradition from the beginning. Machinery Hill was just the means to the end.

In fact, I've noticed that no matter which fair or festival I attend these days, the food is pretty much the same.

I think our fair should be the most creative place in the state, where we can discover local food and see it prepared by hand and produced with intelligence, creativity and, yes, even love. Food from Minnesota grass-fed meats, pastured eggs, rich local organic cream, butter and milk, and fresh organic fruits and vegetables.

Fact is, not all foods need to be fried in toxic, hydrogenated oils.

Returning to more artisanal, local and natural options would actually be quite easy. Food vendors who choose to go green and wholesome would need to do nothing more than to display signage indicating which local, sustainable, organic, free-range and humane ingredients they use.

Customers then would get to choose. No one will take away the deep-fried candy bars on a stick. But just think what a foodie or two on the committee that selects new booths could do for our beloved fair.

Scare stories that organic foods are too expensive are mostly myths propagated by the massive food giants. Wholesome, nutrient-dense foods also satisfy deeply without giving us the sugar blues or the MSG brain fog.

And less is more. One juicy 100 percent grass-fed hamburger satisfies like two or three factory-meat burgers.

To be "fair," we all vote with our dollars for the kind of food we want. Fortunately for me, great food is starting to come back to the fair.

Try the apples at the Horticulture building. There's also grilled walleye, honey ice cream sundaes, local craft beers and wines, fresh corn with butter, and natural brats by the horse barn.

There is the French Meadow organic bakery, organic coffee and desserts at the Farmer's Union building and many others.

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