Thursday, March 20, 2008

CSAs: My Decision Making Process

I spoke to a friend yesterday about this CSA thing. As my friend CravingCleveland asked in a comment, so will I do this CSA thing and shut up already. (Actually, she is really too nice a person to say it that way, but blogs are supposed to be a heightened sense of reality, right?) So, the other day I started to put down how my feelings stand right now.

Pros:

  • Support Local Farms
  • Support American jobs
  • Support the farmers
  • Decrease the global use of pesticides (Organic CSAs) in a small way
  • Always know that you will have some vegetables to cook—fewer rushed runs to the grocery store
  • Have some sense of what food you will be getting each week—allows you to plan ahead
  • Helps promote a healthy lifestyle—no one can avoid a whole giant bag of vegetables
  • Promotes cooking creativity—no one can endure three weeks of zucchini noodle surprise
  • Creates a bond between you and the person who produced your food
  • Allows you to know exactly what went into your food

Cons:

  • Too much food
  • Too much of the same food
  • Need to go to the pick up location every week (difficult with erratic schedules)
  • If it prevents you from shopping from other local farms, it makes you feel like you are not supporting farms in general
  • Miss out on going to the market—and the social culture of shopping for food at markets (if we don’t go with a market pick up
  • We have so many local farmers and with such wonderful specialties—why be monogamous?

4 comments:

holly_44109 said...

lol..."shut up" is not even in my vocabulary!

You're lists make perfect sense to me, I am also struggling with the decision of wheather to sign up or not. The biggest problems I have are the pick up locations, too much of the same food and not going to the farmers markets.

I have these romantic dreams of taking the baby and my husband (or a friend) to a different farmers market each week. Being able to pick and choose what we buy and supporting a bunch of farmers is sounding like the best plan for us this summer.

maybelles mom said...

I have to say, last year, this time, I barely took a shower on the weekends, let alone thought deeply about CSAs.

But, Belle was a winter baby and by summer, we did exactly what you said, go to the farmers market and picked out food for the week. It was a wonderful thing to do with the baby--she enjoyed it so much and we enjoyed getting out as a family. We didn't take her out much when she was little so it was also the way I learned what we needed to take to go out with her (just a few diapers and some wipes.) ANd, it also showed us that our little one is not really a front-carrier being (Sorry, baby bjorn).

Basically, it was also how I got all the vegetables for her baby food. I then would freeze it and use it into fall, when she was moving on to food with teeth. So, to me, your plan, while romantic is totally doable.

holly_44109 said...

Thanks for the encouraging words :) I just have no idea what to expect.

I found out that City Fresh will again have a stop very close to my house this summer. Their website says that "Fresh Stops offer weekly “share bags” which include a mix of produce available from local farmers each week." So that solves the issue of supporting more than one farm. I've requested more info from them and will pass it on to you when I get it.

maybelles mom said...

a friend of a friend does city fresh, and loved it. She said it is a lot of food but worth it. I couldn't get hold of anyone there the times I called, and it is a West Side pick up, so I didn't include it in my line up. It would be nice for you, as your baby will be younger than Belle was last summer. So, it might be nice to have someone decide for you.