Organic - Paying For Bugs or Healthy Choice?

As you know, I never need an excuse to shop. However, there is a new internet phenomenon happening now called “Social Shopping.” I subscribe to quite a few of these sites which generally feature one big deal per day. Some examples of these sites are: MamaBargains, Baby Steals, Living Social, and the king of Social Shopping sites, Groupon. I’m not as bad as Josh Stevens – the man who lives entirely off of Groupons. But I might be getting close.

Side note: here is an interesting article about Groupon – how the company went from a value of $0 to 1.35 BILLION in only 18 months. And where Social Shopping may go from here.

Anyway, I like social shopping. I like the one time only, deep discount, method of getting you to try something new. Last week, I signed up for a free trial order of organic produce delivery from Full Circle Farm. The offer was $16 for a $35 order of produce. I figured, I spend $16 on produce at the store so this is worth it. If I like it, I may think it’s worth the extra $$$ to get it delivered.

Another side note: we live in the heart of Amazon.com country. About three years ago, Amazon started a pilot program called “Amazon Fresh” where they offer grocery delivery in select areas. As far as I know, this service has been very popular (many of my co-workers use it) but we don’t live in a delivery area and so I have been unable to try it. I am a devout Amazon Prime user, and I suspect I would adopt Amazon Fresh immediately if I could use it – but for now I have to wait. This produce delivery might be my fix until Amazon expands a smidge more into the South Puget Sound area.

Today, my first order arrived. The service is pretty nice – they email you on the Friday before your order is delivered to tell you what they are planning to send you. You then have the option to substitute items if something doesn’t look appealing. You also have a global “never, ever ship me this” list where they won’t even attempt up to 5 items. This delivery had quite a bit of greenery (like chard) and I substituted for things like tomatoes and potatoes for my first order. I figure, let’s start out with most of things I am familiar with and a splash of something new and we can get adventurous later. I don’t want this “trial” to fail just because I didn’t like the veggies.

Here are the items that arrived today:

• Green Leaf Lettuce, Organic - 1 each - Washington Growers, Washington.
• Red Beets, Organic - 1 bunch - Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington.
• Tomatoes, Organic - 2 each - California Growers, California.
• Bunched Carrots, Organic - 1 each - Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington.
• Red Radishes, Organic - 1 bunch - Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington.
• Cucumbers, Organic - 1 each - Washington Growers, Washington.
• Yukon Gold Potatoes, Organic - 1.5 pounds - Washington Growers, Washington.
• Yellow Onions, Organic - 2 each - Washington Growers, Washington.
• Dapple Dandy Pluots, Organic - 4 each - Tiny's Organic, East Wenatchee, Washington.
• Nectarines, Organic - 3 each - Stemilt, Wenatchee, Washington.
• Tosca Pears, Organic - 4 each - Washington Growers, Washington.
• Gala Apples, Organic - 4 each - Washington Growers, Washington.

To try and give myself another leg up on trying to like this service, I washed all the fruit and vegies this afternoon and stored them clean. Wow. Good thing they aren’t charging me by the weight because there was probably about a half pound of dirt on these things. I may have to buy a vegetable cleaner brusher thing if we keep this up.

I washed them while Owen ate his lunch. I think you all know that Owen only eats vegetables in pureed form. Well, I handed him a whole raw carrot and expected him to take one bite and hand it back to me as usual – but he ate the whole thing! He called it a “crunchy” and when he was done, he asked for more “crunchy!” That may have been worth the 16 bucks right there. I also sliced up a radish and gave it to him, calling it a “chip.” I thought I had it in the bag until I discovered that radishes are spicy as hell! Oops! Sorry Owen! But, he did eat an entire Pluot and an entire Apple for dessert. Steve and I are having roasted beets and sautéed beet stems for dinner.

So to summarize: our family, who eats very little veggies, consumed about 4 pluots, 1 apple, 2 carrots, 4 beets and a handful of beet greens today. And Owen ate his first full serving of non-pureed vegetables. Pretty good, I think?