ChowBaby

a quick friday post about getting local fruits and veggies.

this Michelle Slatalla article in the NY Times was published this summer. but i missed it. if you did, too, it's a great resource for finding local veggies online. well, at least if you live in CA, WA, TX, IL, OR or NY.

the sites that she (and, now, i) list are delivery services that bring organic, local fruits and veggies to your door. as a brooklynite, i'm used to getting groceries delivered from fresh direct. it's not without complication... or guilt. the scheduling. the extra packaging. and the extra gas and food miles that home delivery adds to the equation. but i'll stand by my decision to get groceries home delivered for as long as it enables more home cooked meals and better eating (fresh direct has a good organic selection from which we do most of our shopping).

if services like these empower families to eat better and support their local farms, then i'm all for it. and maybe, if they haven't already, these services will get creative about lessening the impact of individual home delivery so that, at the very least, the upside of creating a support system for local farmers balances the downside.

eat your veggies. have a great weekend.

-S

dr. alan greene, one of our favorite go-to experts and a dallas pediatrician, just finished a 3-year experiment with an "n" of "1" (he used himself as the study population)—where he ate only organic foods for 3 whole years. his goal? to see how feasible it was, to examine the challenges, and to see if there were tangible health benefits. he reports that it was far easier to eat organic at home than out. that he had to reduce the amount of meat he ate because organic meat costs so much. and that after 3 years, he gets sick much less frequently. 

we try to eat all organic in our family too. and i'm especially committed to feeding my son organic, even more than myself or my husband, for the reasons we talk about all the time:

but it isn't always easy to do. and, especially in this economy, financially daunting for many of us. but it's important to keep in mind that value of organic isn't just about the the price of an organic product. it's about the long-term cost of NOT eating organic. about how it affects our kids' health, the planet's health, and the health of generations to come.

if you really find yourself forced to choose organic vs non-organic, whether because of availability or cost concerns, most experts agree that certain foods should always be organic. we blogged a list of top-10 foods in the past that you can check it out here.

and then read about Dr. Greene's experiment yourself  here.

m