At the Mercy of the Sun

Today was a big day. My husband and I mailed off payment for one full share in the Haddon Farms CSA. For those of you who don't know (which included me until yesterday), CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture." What it boils down to is that, for the $600 share we bought, we'll get one basket of fresh, local fruits and veggies every week from June through November. The farm doesn't use any synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, which is awesome, and it's just down the road in Simpsonville, so our food won't be traveling very far to get to us.

As great as this concept is, I agonized over it a little bit. I mean, $600 is a lot of money -- especially for a couple who's still saving up to buy a house in the near future. I wasn't on-board until I mentioned it to my husband, but his enthusiasm totally won me over. (He's a chef, and he can talk food like nobody's business). The more we talked about it, the more I wanted to do it too. So, we mailed away our money, and I'm really looking forward to June. This system is going to be a pretty big change for us. We're used to just deciding what we want to eat, then going to the store and buying whatever ingredients we need. When we start getting our CSA produce, we'll be more at the mercy of the seasons. I like the idea of being a little more in harmony with the sun and the natural cycle of the plants we'll be eating. If everything goes well this year and we decide to buy a share next year too, I'll probably try to get in early enough to get one of the "working shares." They're only $250 if you agree to work 3 hours a week on the farm (which I would love).

In other news, I've decided to start keeping track of all the money we spend on food this year (April - April), so I can see how much of a difference we can make in our food choices. Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of this sort of thing in the past, so I don't have a good base line for comparison. But, I can safely say that, while we always tried to buy nutritious food, we never made any special effort to buy local or sustainably produced food... so probably only about 1-5% of our food dollars went to that type of food. I'd like it to be at least 50%, which I think is totally achievable, between the CSA and the meat delivery.

I am learning that these responsible choices won't be easy to make in grocery stores -- even the ones that purport to cater to the healthy lifestyle. I went to Earth Fare tonight to pick up a few things, and of the $42.97 I spent, only $9.86 of it went towards products from my state. I tried to find locally produced items, but it was really hard! They had the Happy Cow milk, which I bought. I found some bean soup mix from Charleston, but I can't speak for how it was grown. I also picked up some Ezekiel bread because it's tasty, a container of raisins for making granola, and a few odds and ends. It was fine for a supplemental grocery store trip, but I'm glad I've found some alternative means of obtaining protein and produce. The meat section at Earth Fare does have a reasonable selection of pastured SC meats, but -- as far as I could tell -- the produce section was all imported from somewhere else.

Tonight, I'm placing our first order with Native Meats! We have opted to create our own box of ground beef, a couple of filets (we are spoiled), some Italian sausage, a box of bacon, and one whole chicken. I will post pictures and a full report when the meat arrives.

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." ~Voltaire