Where'd you get THAT?

As a mother, I really want to take great care of my family.  I know that means making sure they eat healthy, but feeding four kids gets expensive.  All it takes is a trip to the grocery store to see that it is much less expensive to feed your family much of the processed junk than it is to feed them good, nutritious, whole foods.  While my husband and I are willing to spend more to invest in our family's health long-term, saving money is still important.  Sourcing whole foods, and even organic foods, at a reasonable price can be difficult.  We're often left to the small, unsatisfactory produce departments at our local grocery store.  I know, especially this time of year, there isn't much variety and much of the produce has been shipped from far away, even foreign countries.  While there's nothing wrong with sourcing produce from where ever necessary, produce is often more flavorful, colorful and nutrient-dense when sourced locally.  But short of planting your own one-acre garden and running a 10,000 square foot green house, how do you do that?  The best answer I have found are food co-ops.

Food co-ops are cooperatives or groups of people who pool their resources (time, energy, money) to source groceries that are local, sometimes organic, and often sustainable.  Often the prices are lower than the local grocery store and if organics are available they are almost certainly cheaper than you can find most anywhere else.

But where do you find a co-op?  Is there even one in your local area?  You don't think I'd have written this if I didn't have a solution for you, did you?  Of course, finding a food co-op may mean a short drive to a neighboring town or city, but I think it's totally worth it.  Here are a couple websites to help you find a food co-op near you.

www. coopdirectory.org is a website that will let you search by state.  While this list is not exhaustive, it is a good place to start.

Local Harvest didn't give me many co-ops for the areas I searched, but they had a decent list of Farmer's Markets (another great resource for your local produce and other food products)

I'm currently stuck in the middle of nowhere Kentucky where the whole foods movement has taken somewhat of a back seat to the terrible economy and basic survival.  There is a seasonal Farmer's Market nearby but getting to a store like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods takes me an hour out of my way (as in i would have to drive two hours round trip for nothing but those stores).

Through some friends, I stumbled across Bountiful Baskets which can be found in a LOT of locations.  There is a site near my current home and its fairly convenient, which makes it totally do-able.  Bountiful Baskets does source its produce much like a grocery store.  The produce often comes packaged similarly to what you find in your local supermarket.  But, getting it direct from the source can save a significant amount and the produce is often fresher than what you can find in stores.  There's an option for an all-organic package as well.  Each week they offer add-on baskets where you can pay extra for a variety of things, many of which are useful for canning and preserving.  This week they're offering 21 lbs of pineapple as well as 35 lbs of apples.  We opted for the "juice pack" which is expected to contain beets, carrots, kale, lemons, oranges and a few other fruits in addition to the weekly basket.  Bountiful Baskets is also in the community where we will be relocating so I'm excited to be able to use this service there, too.  The great thing about getting produce this way is that you're never 100% sure what is coming in your basket until you pick it up.  This can be unnerving for those who aren't as adventurous, but I've used it as a reason to get my family to try new foods.

However you find one, I highly recommend a food co-op for healthy, reasonably priced foods for your family.