Blake (pictured) and I came home last rainy Thursday to a big plastic Greenling bin sitting on a chair in our enclosed patio .. just where I had asked the delivery service to leave it 
It’s always exciting to get a package, so one filled with delicious fresh produce is a whole new way to get excited about healthy living. The other exciting part was the included preparation suggestions and recipes. I was concerned that the produce might not last since I usually do my shopping and meal planning for the week on Saturday, but here we are on the following Friday and after making a salad using the hydroponic lettuce, roasted baby bok choy, and the Asian noodle and cabbage salad stir fry recipe, the rest of the produce is holding up fine. I plan to stir fry the mushrooms to top vegan sausage dogs for dinner tonight and I’ll most likely stir fry the kale. Saturday I’ll prepare the silken turnip soup recipe. yum!
Care to have fresh, organic, and mostly local produce and other items delivered to your door? Save time, money spent on gas, and support local farmers while eating seasonally with services like that offered at greenling.com; Instead of your produce traveling cross country, you can have it delivered from as close as within your own county, thus providing you with produce that retains as much of it’s nutrients as possible. Simply enter your zip code at greenling.com, and if they do not currently service your area they offer a list of other grocery delivery services that do. Awesome!
Farmhouse Delivery, an Austin, Texas-based CSA (“community supported agriculture”) program, is another such company I discovered that also looks to bring the farm to your door, including local produce, meat, dairy, eggs, and local artisan products. For $35 a week (or $37 for bi-weekly deliveries), and a one time $20 set up fee, customers can expect delivery of delicious, fresh, seasonal produce from Rain Lily Farm and other local farms, plus other added benefits.
This will be the first time in my life that I plan my meals around the produce that arrives at my door, which is how it should be, instead of planning my meals and buying the produce from far off countries like Chile to prepare it.
What organic and or local food delivery services do you use in your area, and what has been your experience?
I read an article today that reminds me how politics are involved in just about every aspect of daily life, especially when money is at stake. Given the gain in popularity of organic goods, large multi-million dollar companies have developed “factory farms” now accused of violating certain federal organic laws, placing the ethical family farmers that established the industry at risk. One such company, Aurora Dairy, that owns five “factory farms” consisting of thousands of cows each was found guilty by the USDA of 14 violations including confining their animals and bringing conventional illegal cows into the mix. The company was placed on a one-year probation as a result. Coincidentally or not the president of Aurora Dairy, Mark Retzloff, is a large contributor to the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Lobbyists are hard at work trying to convince the administration in charge of the organic livestock standards to lessen the rules. While the farmers appeal to president Obama and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for justice, as consumers we can act to ensure these small family farmers are protected so that we can continue to get a product that is produced by high standards. Purchase direct from a farm or farmers market in your area.