CSA

Community Supported Agriculture

Today I joined a local organic CSA. I am very excited about this. We spent some time during the summer going out to an organic farm and picking berries and tomatoes and we just fell in love with fresh from the farm food (wow, that was an awesome alliteration... can you tell I live with a writer?). Nothing tastes better than fresh picked; seriously. I learned recently that in the last 24 hours that a fruit/veggie is ripening is when the vine just pours nutrients into the food, making them peak healing machines. Food at the grocery store, even organic, is not picked ripe. It's picked pre-ripe so it looks ripe when you get it, but it's not really ripe b/c it has been cut off from the source of it's nourishment. STILL way healthier than boxed and/or processed foods so we continue to eat it b/c you do get some nutrition from it, just not as much as fresh picked ripe. Anyway, b/c of all that knowledge rattling around in my noggin, I decided to try a CSA this year.

We tried an organic food co-op earlier this year but the produce went from great (first week) to yucky (fourth week) pretty quickly and after I addressed it with the guy in charge, he tried to make it better but I continued to get substandard produce so I quit the co-op. But I am thrilled to be buying into this CSA now. Not only do I know the farmers, but I know what land my food is grown on and it's picked the day I get it, not a week before. I love that! :)

Now if I could just sprout myself a green thumb so I could grow something that survived long enough to produce food. lol In the meantime, check out a CSA near you. Our box comes out to $1.77 a day. So divide that by 4 and that's what we're paying a day per person for our produce. I love Whole Foods, but this is MUCH cheaper... and in the long run also healthier.

I wanna be a farmer when I grow up. :D