October 9th, 2008

Save Money by Eating Fresh, Local, Organic Food

Posted by Siel, green LA girl

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Want local, organic seasonal produce, conveniently boxed up for your pick up — at a really reasonable price? Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Basically, joining a CSA buys you a share in a farm — so you’re directly contributing to local, sustainable agriculture. In exchange, you’ll get your share of the fresh, healthy harvest!

More and more people — from health-conscious moms to foodies to environmental advocates to people who simply don’t like wandering the grocery isles — are discovering CSAs — and blogging about it! Follow a blogger in your area to find out what’s growing at your CSA — then to find recipes for the boxes of bounties you receive after you sign up! A few to follow:

24 Boxes in Chicago, Ill. Blogger Jennifer Mayer, a.k.a. J.Noelle, gets 24 boxes of produce a year from Angelic Organics, an organic and biodynamic CSA in Rockford, Illinois. Price: $720, or $30 per box holding 8 to 14 items each.

“This is my third year as a shareholder and I’m still figuring out how to work my way through 24 boxes of vegetables a year,” J. Noelle writes. During that time, she’s put together a robust local eating and cooking resource through her blog. If you decide to become an Angelic Organics member too, you’ll want to stop by 24 Boxes every week for convenient links to recipes featuring the items in your box!

The Worsted Witch in Brooklyn, NY. Blogger Jasmin Chua gets 22 boxes of produce a year from Downtown Harvest, which this year gets its produce from the organic Starbrite Farm in Hardwick, N.J. Price: $495, or $22.50 per box, which to quote Jasmin is “almost criminally low for a big box of fresh, organic produce.”

Apparently, each box is really quite sizable, because many of Jasmin’s food-related posts start with rather panicked accounts of her effort to eat up the amazing amount of produce. “I’m madly trying to keep up with my CSA’s vegetable bounty,” she declares in a post that includes a delicious-sounding recipe for Carrot, Ginger, and Beet Soup. In another, she asks: “Are you, like me, drowning in precariously stacked mounds of squash from your CSA farmer?” Get bewitched by the allure of your local CSA by following Jasmin’s blog.

The Ethicurean’s Bonnie P. in Oakland, Calif. gets her produce from Eatwell Farm in Dixon, Calif. Price: Eatwell offers a number of different package deals, but $588 will get you 26 boxes (about $22.50 each) of produce.

Through Eatwell, Bonnie P.’s discovered heirloom melons, courageously dealt with mutant carrots, and challenged herself to eat up a box filled up almost entirely with greens. The most fun-sounding post is one about a CSA Challenge, a.k.a. a lively dinner party featuring “a fantastic vegetarian meal that left five people feeling very sated — and virtuous — for a total cost of about $30″ — excepting the price of wine.
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Ready to throw your own CSA Challenge party? Find your nearest CSA program by entering your zip into Local Harvest’s page. You may even end up starting a blog to chronicle your own adventures in good eating –

Screenshots courtesy of the featured blogs

Remember you can also find organic restaurants and markets across the country here at Low Impact Living.

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