Sustainable Food

I'm so excited!  It's Thursday.  And it's an "other" Thursday!  That means it's my day to get a big box of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables delivered to my doorstep.  I wait for this day every other week like it's my birthday or Thanksgiving or something.

I was recently directed to this service, Door to Door Organics, by someone on a message board.  It's a service that brings food to you, for a fee, of course.  Some of it is local and some is not.  All of it is organic.  I clicked on the link thinking, "There's no way they'll be delivering in my area. And if they are, I'm sure it's not affordable." But I was wrong on both counts. Yay for being wrong!

I started out ordering the smallest box available in my area because I wasn't sure what to expect.  Then Paul and I decided to go in on a larger box together.  There's enough in the bigger box to last both of our households for 2 weeks until we get another box.  I have had to supplement occasionally with a few store bought carrots or broccoli because we're always running out of those things.  I also bought grapes last week because Miriam and Samuel have been begging for some and we haven't had any in our boxes.  But for the most part, this is how we get our produce.

Several months ago Paul and I bought 1/8 of a locally raised, humanely slaughtered Longhorn.  We anticipated eating that beef for a long time but the animal wasn't as large as we expected and my meat was gone pretty quickly.  Paul and Cole, who consume considerably less red meat than we do at my house, just finished off their portion last week. Now, in January we are going to buy 1/4 of a Black Angus bull.  It's been grass-fed up to now and will be for a few more weeks.  The last few weeks of its life it will be fed organic grain.  We're okay with that because the guy can assure us it has been given no antibiotics or hormones.

So between the beef and the organic fruit and veggie box, we're getting a large percentage of our food from sustainable sources.  Love it!

And for your viewing pleasure, an apple we got in our first organic box.  It actually had a living worm in it!  Do you see it?  It's the white-ish, wormy looking thing coming out of the seed pod.  The kids didn't believe that actually happened.  We gently transferred the worm to a pot of dirt on the patio and then ate the apple.