So, I know I ramble on a lot on this blog about the massive benefits of growing your own organic food, but I’m also not unaware that this might not be a realistic option for everyone. Given this fact, I thought I’d share with you all just how immensely valuable joining a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) can be!
One of the hallmarks of living a more substantial and impactful life is putting healthy food into our bodies and looking after our microbiome!
Joining a CSA is something that also positively impacts local business, small organic farming, and is much better for the environment because the food is traveling shorter distances to get to it’s final destination: You, the consumer!
Read on to learn more about CSA’s and other ethical food producers, how to find one near you, and the many benefits to yourself AND Mother Earth that supporting small farming provides!
“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” – Albert Einstein
Ain’t that the truth! As someone who grew up with chronic health issues, I learned early on just how important that quote is. One critically important fact I learned growing up was that the food I put in my body had a direct effect on my health. It took years to figure out I had CLD (Chronic/Perpetual Lyme Disease), but it didn’t take nearly that long to figure out that certain foods either made me feel better or much, much worse.
Through my health issues, my entire family growing up adopted eating organically early on. My mom had always had a vegetable garden, but when we started researching just where our food came from, that was a REAL eye-opener! 👀
The more we learned about pesticide and herbicide usage, the more horrified we became. Then, realizing how all these toxic compounds sprayed on our food negatively affects our health, well, our family knew we needed to move towards only organically grown (and non-GMO) foods.
We started supporting Farmer’s Markets, food producers who had a conscious, and also CSA’s that produced organically grown foods. It didn’t take long to realize how doing this not only improved our family’s health, but the environment as well….
Today, we find our local CSA’s to be indispensable to us: since we just moved into our current home we don’t have our edible front yard garden built yet, so having access to organic, local produce has been beyond wonderful!
So – just what is a CSA?
CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) is a system that supports small farmers to consumers within a direct-to-consumer food system. Sometimes you will hear people refer to this as a Crop Share Program.
Every CSA is different, and finding one in your area is incredibly easy thanks to Local Harvest! Some CSA’s request a financial commitment up-front for the year (farming is expensive, especially organically, y’all…) while others offer weekly payments via automatic deduction from a credit card. It just depends on the particular system your local CSA has set up. I’d also recommend asking friends, asking at a local Farmer’s Market, checking with your Facebook Community Groups, or just Google searching!
By supporting these hard-working small producing farmer’s in your community, you are not only aware of exactly where your food has come from (some CSA’s allow their members to help harvest! Fun!) but also ensures the peace of mind that you are doing Mother Earth a MAJOR favor by freeing up all the semi-truck travel on the country’s freeways/highways! 🌎
Most CSA’s provide strictly produce, but some do offer foodstuffs such as eggs, meat and cheese, and even milk! Here is a look at my local CSA: they are wonderful! It’s like Christmas each week when we go to our local small grocery store to pick up our box! We also have another incredible local CSA in my area that offers a Farmer’s Market booth as well as free delivery to our home each week!
We feel so great supporting our local small-business and farming – especially in times like these!
In our experience, the farmer’s make every attempt to have a special, intimate relationship with their customers and we have found the sense of community to be priceless….
So – just what are the benefits of CSA’s?
🌱 They Allow You To Eat Healthier:
When a box of gorgeous, colorful vegetables and fruits either arrives at your house or you pick it up, just looking at it and knowing it’s in your care inspires a person to not only NOT waste the food (you are paying for it, after all!) but since you have all these antioxidant-filled foodstuffs in your house, it actually encourages you to eat in a much healthier way! Because CSA’s provide foodstuffs that are also in season, it allows you to access and ingest a wide variety of different fruits and vegetables – and most likely types you would have never picked up for yourself at the grocery store (I’m lookin’ at you, Fennel!)…..
🚜 Supporting Local Farmers + Less Travel Time = Happy Environment:
It’s maybe something a lot of people don’t think about: just how long did that “fresh” produce spend on a heat-filled truck, spitting gasoline and toxins into the air, juuuuuust to get it to my local grocery store?
Many would be shocked to learn the truth! Not only does your produce lose valuable nutrients via long distance travel, but toxins in the air from truck travel create fossil fuels that are horrible for the state of Mother Earth!
Did you know food travels over 1,500 miles from farm to plate?
I know! It’s utterly shocking! Lisa at 100 Days of Real Food is a great source for how to transfer from a processed food lifestyle into a real, whole foods lifestyle! Definitely check her blog out! So, by supporting locally grown food and producers, you are actually minimizing your environmental footprint! Talk about powerful! ⚡️
🍲 CSA’s Make Meal Planning SO Much Easier:
What do I mean? Well, most CSA’s will alert its customers ahead of time as to exactly what they are harvesting for the next box! Knowing a week ahead of time what produce I will be receiving is a massive help in regards to my meal planning! It also helps me to take stock of what is currently in my refrigerator, and what I need to eat up that week so we don’t have too much of one type of produce!
As someone who is obsessed with all things fermented, it also allows me to go ahead and ferment any produce that I have excess of currently AND that I know I will be getting the next week from my CSA! It has been amazing to us as a family how much LESS food waste we have since joining our local CSA’s in our community…
💲 It actually SAVES you money:
Many people are very surprised when I tell them that since joining two local CSA’s in our area, we actually spend LESS money for groceries overall! It’s totally true!
First off, we aren’t paying for grocery store mark-up! Second, we are getting organic, locally grown (a.k.a. FRESH!) produce for less than grocery store prices AND less than most Farmer’s Markets!
Another option some people do is to share a box, crop share, meat share, etc!
I have many friends who purchase, say, an entire cow but share it either by half or in quarters! That can really cut costs, especially since it’s super important to try to support grassfed and humanely treated animals! I am hoping to find a local farmer in my area who offers humanely treated and grassfed meats so that I can grow my support even further! Since my husband and son don’t eat meat, it would definitely make sense for me to share in the purchasing of these ethically raised animals!
Lastly, the whole concept of “you get what you pay for” couldn’t possibly ring more true in the case of CSA’s! There is absolutely no way any foodstuffs you pick up from a grocery store are going to contain the same high levels of quality, freshness, nutrients, and flavor! So considering you pay LESS for all that – why on earth people still don’t belong to a local CSA is completely beyond me!
💡 Joining a CSA actually SIMPLIFIES your life:
Not only does the CSA allow me to plan ahead, it also truly simplifies my life! I used to have to go to 3-4 (no joke!) different grocery stores simply to get all the ingredients my food-challenged family required! 🤦🏼♀️
Since joining the CSA’s in our area, I now only go to Trader Joe’s for everything else. Plus, we spend less at grocery stores because I am purchasing less items! It is an absolute, game-changing win-win! I used to dread going to the grocery store, piling up my cart until it practically fell over, and having to lug the groceries into the car, out of the car and into the house, and put them all away! It was a major chore!
Since joining the two CSA’s in our area, everything is just easier and more streamlined, you guys!
I simply go to the small grocery store down the street from our house to pick up my one CSA box, and the other CSA box we belong to is delivered free to our front door! Then, I simply place said boxes into my fridge! SO EASY! Also, both CSA’s are recycling their boxes (don’t worry, they let them sit for a long time before re-using due to Covid!) so they are doing their part to help reduce waste for Mother Earth as well!
🌈 CSA’s Provide a Sense of Community:
First off, just knowing our money is going to local, hard-working farmers means we are automatically supporting our local community! And that feeling is WONDERFUL.
It feels incredible to know that we are helping to support the expansion of their business, and we know this is therefore making organic, sustainable food more equitable for everyone. The whole concept behind Community Supported Agriculture started in the 1980’s with the idea that our lands should be held in common with a certain community and that a network of human relationships is more dynamic and effective versus the traditional employer/employee system.
CSA farmers believe that increasing access to fresh food while also meeting the needs of both the local people and lands is of immense importance, and most CSA’s and small-business farming are still philosophically committed to these principles.
[bctt tweet=”Knowing these ethically-minded farmers are able to sustain their businesses because of our support is incredibly important to my husband and I.” username=”@TaraHoward17″]
We see incredible value in creating long-lasting relationships with our local farmers, and it seems blatantly clear to us that they, in return, share in this ideology. 🥰
I have even heard of some farmers holding annual potlucks for their members, hosting farm tours, or sending monthly newsletters – making every member feel they are a part of the farm itself.
The small family farm is a dying breed, and we see it as an epidemic that more people aren’t willing to get out of their big box store rut and see the immense value in supporting local farming practices….
So, would our family continue supporting CSA’s, ethically-minded food co-ops, and local Farmer’s Markets? That answer, as you may have guessed, is a resounding HECK YES!!!! 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌
I hope this post will not just help you in considering joining this movement, but actually committing to it and joining one today. It’s important on so many levels, dear readers….
I’d also LOVE to hear if you have joined a local CSA, how you found it, and your overall thoughts! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for more musings on living a more impactful, substantial life!
Always Here,
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