Singing the Praises of a CSA

I just picked up the last basket of produce this season from our CSA. Each week when we've picked up our delicious locally, organically grown fruits and vegetables I've thought, "Why didn't we do this sooner? It's so incredible. I need to tell other people how great this is."

I eschewed the CSA thing for a long time because I thought it would be too expensive or that I'd end up throwing away any food that I didn't like. I was so wrong.

You may think CSA's sound very southern and country, but I bet there's a CSA near you! And I highly recommend trying it out. Here are the benefits I've found so far:

1. It's very inexpensive. The cost comes out to $15 a week. Pictured above is one week's pickup to give you an idea of how much we get. Several weeks in the height of summer we received even much larger shares. This is organic produce; it would cost signicantly more that $15 in the grocery store for all of that. I was shocked.
2. It's organic and locally grown. I won't go on about the benefits of eating food that's free from pesticides, not genetically modified, and picked only a day or two before you get it.

3. It's expanded our food horizons. Many of the foods we've received in our share I've never previously purchased or eaten. Some of the foods I didn't even know existed, like these long beans, purple peppers, and yellow watermelon. Thanks to being in the CSA we now enjoy a much larger variety of fruits and vegetables than we ever have. And have you ever seen how brussels sprouts grow? Wow.
4. It's forced me to find new recipes. I used to get stuck in food ruts, cooking the same things over and over. Not with a CSA. In addition to learning to cook and eat foods I've never had before, I've also had to find a variety of recipes to use up the large amounts of certain items. (See my posts on Zucchini Crazy and Pumpkin Paradise.) It's always good to add some new recipes to the lineup.
5. It's stocked my freezer for winter. Our $15/week of produce not only lasts the week, it feeds us for much more. I have two freezers with stockpiles of anything we couldn't eat or give away before our next share arrived. I've learned a lot about what can/can't be frozen and how to do it.
6. It gives me food to share with others. Whenever I know there's something I won't eat or won't freeze, I call up a friend and ask them if they want it. I don't like to see things go to waste, and it's fun for me to know someone else is enjoying it.

7. It provides fun times with my kids. They go with me to pick out the vegetables, so they get to learn what's what. Together we've shelled black-eyed peas, shucked corn, and sliced bowls and bowls of watermelon. And they absolutely LOVED farm day, where we went to the Amish farm where our food is grown, met the farmers, picked some vegetables straight out of the ground, rode horse-drawn carriages, and chased farm animals -- a dream day for my kids.

So give it a try! You may even like it so much that you'll start getting your meat and eggs from a CSA too...We absolutely love the farm we get our meat and eggs from. Maybe I'll blog on that later...

Happy Eating!