Tuesday

A Few Resonable Alternatives

It has been bought to my attention that there are areas of this country that have neither co-ops nor farmers markets. As someone who lives in a city with three co-ops and over 6 farmers markets I just cant wrap my brain around that concept. But if you have the misfortune of living in one of these areas without basic services, here are some options

Start a Buyers Club, outfits such as Mountain Peoples offer members of the public the option of ordering direct and receiving not only a discount, but home delivery as well. You and some friends and or family get together and order from a catalog chalk full of organic, GM free foods from a catalog that offers prices below what you will find in stores (though not as low as actual wholesale) You call in your order and they deliver it to a designated address (one of the members homes) as part of their regular wholesale deliveries. Most have a minimum order, say $500 per order. Some families find that they spend that much themselves, others go in with one or more other families. Here is a link to a site who can help you find resources for a food club supplier in you are.

Join A CSA
(community Supported Agriculture) farm. CSAs offer "shares" in the seasons bounty, your share entitles you to weekly deliveries of fresh, seasonal organic produce during the growing season. Heres a link to get you started

Demand better from your local store
. Quite simply, retail stores, including grocery stores, are in the business of serving you. When I moved into this house 4 years ago, the Conventional grocery store down the street carried three organic items: milk, eggs and rice milk. Today they have organic options in almost every category. Thats what relentless pressure from single-minded, belligerent mamas will get you. Insist on getting what you want, when I would go in there for eggs and found that they were out of the organic eggs I would grab an employee and ask for the organic eggs --were there more in back??-- if they had none I refused to by the conventional ones. I made sure they knew that, and knew why. It works.

Grow your Own
. Easier than you think, more satisfying than you can imagine.

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Okay -- I will explore my options :-) Not because I should, but because I want to.

westwind said...

there are doubtless even more options then the few I thought of --I think that there are almost always more options than we realize-- but it's a start. Just imagine what might happen if we all started availing ourselves of the best available alternatives for our lives? Not every option is going to work for every person, or every family, but if we all found good alternatives that worked for us . . .WOW!