Bountiful Baskets

I absolutely loved Bountiful Baskets when I was participating last year, but my schedule ended up always conflicting with the pickup time, as well as Vince's, so we had to stop. After reading about Sara getting Bountiful Baskets and seeing her pictures, I was reminded of how much I love it and decided to look into it again and see if there was another added pickup spot. There was! So now Vince and I are participating again! For those who don't know, here's a quick re-cap of how this works: basically you pay $15 (or $25 for organic) a week ahead of time to participate in a food co-op. Bountiful Baskets then buys cases of fresh fruits and veggies as locally as possible (think California instead of Mexico or China), then volunteers separate it into boxes the morning you pick it up. Because everything is volunteer run, you save a huge amount of money on the food because you aren't paying a store that needs to cover various bills. They claim that the average box 'retails' for about $50, so you save anywhere from $25-$35 depending on if you got a regular or organic box. I would agree with that statement!

This week (I'll get it every other week) I got an organic box for the first time. I was nervous that it would be a lot less food, and while it's a little less food when I compare it to what I got last year and what Sara got a few weeks ago, it's still a lot of food! This is what I got:

 

A lot of organic food for only $25! I don't buy all of my fresh food organic, but rather follow the 'dirty dozen' rule. I have the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen app on my phone and I look at it every time I go shopping. It gives a list of the top 12 foods that have the most pesticides and should be eaten organic, and then also gives me a 'clean fifteen' list that are foods that should be safe if they're non-organic. All of these, with the exception of the watermelon(because it has a thick peel, it doesn't need a lot of pesticides), I would buy organic, so this was well worth it! From my memory, here's about what some items would cost organically if bought from the store: apples cost about $1.25-$1.50 each, so they're about $10. Plums are a little under $1 each, so about $6, lettuce in a bag like that would be $5, butter lettuce $2, bananas about $1 each, so $6, peaches about $2 each, so $4, cauliflower about $2 a pound, so $6, packs of bell peppers about $6, and personal watermelon about $4. So total, everything would be around $46, not including tax! So that puts us around the estimated $50 retail price when you add tax. Not bad.

Vince is particularly excited about juicing the apples, as am I because I want to make some fresh cider! Can you tell I'm excited for fall to be here?

I've already eaten half the watermelon and will be sad to see it be out of season soon. It's definitely one of my favorite fruits!

And does anyone know what these are?!

CSA

My day started off a little rough, with me breaking down in tears. I was looking for my immunization records to turn into school, and I realized I didn't know where they are, even though I used them as recently as last semester. I tore my house apart, which also led me to the realization that I don't know where my new social security card is, my passport, my birth certificate, my voter id card, Vince's social security card, and Vince's birth certificate. These are all thing I kept together in a little box, and now it's no where to be seen. After calling Vince at work to see if he knew where is was and hearing that he didn't, I started crying and got super frustrated.

Then I snapped myself out of it and though, 'Hey big baby, stop crying and be proactive!' So I called my old high school to ask them for a copy of my immunization record that I'm about to go pick up, I'm going to Social Security tomorrow with Vince to get us both new cards, I'm requesting voter id cards for both of us online, and filling out paperwork for both of our birth certificates. I know that as soon as I finish all this stuff I'm going to find the box it's in, but I'd rather be over prepared then come upon a circumstance where I need those things but don't have them!

Fortunately my day became better after that and even better after Vince came home to give me a hug and a kiss before walking me to pick up our CSA share. I've been meaning to post about our share each but haven't been taking pictures of everything.

This week we got some tasty things: green garlic, 1/2 dozen eggs, 5 red potatoes, 5 baby artichokes, 1 bunch cilantro, 1 bunch chard, 2 nopalitos (cactus), 3 grapefruits, and a bag of black beans with a dried red pepper.

This week has been the first week where I've loved everything I've got, maybe with the exception of the cactus. We got it another week and I ate it in eggs, but it wasn't everything special. Maybe I'll try it in a salsa this week!

The Spring Share is almost over and I must admit something: I'm not completely happy with how things have ended. I expected to get more food throughout the season, but that hasn't happened. At $25 a week, that's a lot of money for me, and I wasn't getting enough food for how much I was paying. I feel like if I shopped at New Frontiers for the same organic food I'd be paying less money. I know, I'm supporting a LOCAL farm, which is great, but at the same time, I'm a poor college student! When it comes down to it, I need to get the most bang for my buck because there's no sense in me being broke so that I can give money to another family.

I feel like I need to be buying what I can afford. If I could afford paying $25 a week for a CSA share I would absolutely do it. Just the  fact that I am supporting something local would be good enough for me. But I don't have the money!

For the summer I plan on buying fresh produce from our farmers market. Once a week there is a farmers market at the City Hall parking lot and a bunch of local farmers bring their crop and sell it. I like that I'd still be supporting local farmers, I'd get to buy what I want, and it's still cheap and mostly organic!

After the farmers market is over, I plan on going back to Bountiful Baskets. They have an organic share that's $25 a week (same as the CSA) but it is SO much more. It's a great variety of stuff, which I sadly didn't get with the CSA. I'm sad that it's not local, but at least I'm still buying fresh organic food. (By the way, I don't care if other people eat organic or not. If you're simply eating fresh food, I think that's healthier than eating processed stuff!)

Once I have more money (in what, 10 years when I'm done with med school?! haha) I'll go back to a CSA, but until then, I can't afford it. I'll still try and go shopping there because they have a little store, but I won't participate in a full share.