Organic Food Journey

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that a few weeks ago I posted about the benefit of eating fresh, local & organic food.  In my latest nutrition studies, I've learned about how the food we eat affects not only our bodies, but also our environment.  I've been taking a much closer look at the foods I'm eating - where they come from, whether or not they're in season, organic or not - and I'm here to share with you what I've learned so far.

First, here are the tips I shared on my Instagram:

1. Flavor: If you've ever eaten a tomato fresh off the vine, you know it tastes WAY better than what you buy from the grocery store.  Since mass produced fruits & veggies are often picked before they're ripe, they don't have the same great flavor that fresh and local produce have.
2. Nutrients: When produce is picked before it's ripe, it doesn't get the opportunity to develop its nutrients.  Fresh, local & organic foods contain more vitamins, minerals, enzymes & micronutrients.
3. Impact: Next time you're in the store, check out where your food is coming from.  Often times, our food is shipped from all over the world, which has a huge environmental impact.  Just think of how much effort/fuel is put into getting your food to you.  If we all ate local & seasonal foods, we could help save the environment.
4. Pesticides: You may not want to think about it (I know I sure didn't!) but a lot of the produce we eat is sprayed with chemicals that we then ingest - talk about something being bad for you!  So yes, organic foods are more expensive, but your body will thank you in the long run.

Alright, so how am I practicing what I preach?

My first week back from the vineyard, I missed the farmer's market, so I went to Trader Joe's and bought as many organic products as I could.  Now, not everything that was on my list was available in organic form, but most of the produce was.  I'll tell you, it was not cheap, so we'll see if it's a sustainable option for someone without a job.  Granted, I did buy a bag of chia & flax seeds (probably $15 on their own), but I spent $100 on a week's worth of groceries instead of my usual $50-60.

This week, I researched what produce was in season and planned some recipes to make around those ingredients.  I went to the farmer's market with my grocery list and got just about everything I wanted from the farmer's market - including meat!

I'll be honest, I've avoided farmer's markets since our last farmer's market fiasco.  Story time!  The last time Ryan and I went to the farmer's market, it was a hot day and we bought some items and returned to our car to find out we were not only blocked into our parking space, but the person behind us literally parked with their car hitting Ryan's.  We only had a few inches in front of our car, so there was no way for us to get out of our spot.  We ended up sitting on the sidewalk for close to an hour before the girl came back to her car.  We told her (fairly nicely considering the situation) what she had done and asked her for her insurance information since she had hit our car. She not only didn't apologize, but gave us attitude about asking for her info.  So needless to say, we haven't been back to the farmer's market since.

This experience was far different and we had no parking fiascos.  The verdict?  So far, I've only had the ground beef, lettuce, heirloom tomatoes & strawberries from the farmer's market, but they all have so much more flavor than what I normally buy from the store.  The strawberries, although small, are bursting with natural sweetness.  The heirloom tomatoes have so much flavor to them, I could just eat them like an apple.  Finally, the farm raised beef was so much juicier and full of flavor than the ground beef we buy at the store.  We made burgers out of the meat and just added salt, pepper & Santa Maria seasoning (a garlic, salt & pepper combo) and I was amazed at how much flavor the burgers had.  It really goes to show you that the quality of ingredients matters.  Oh, and it's hard to say exactly how much I spent because it's broken up into so many small purchases & some were cash while others were credit, but I would approximate that I spent about $70 on groceries for the week (including an $8 cheese because I just had to).  So all in all, I'd say that the farmer's market experience was better & cheaper than buying all organic products from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.  We'll definitely be doing this again!