Heinen’s, Local, Organic and Omnivore’s Dilemma

I spoke to an acquaintance D— today about her experience with CityFresh. She and her husband are both chefs. She is the sort of person who could sell you on almost anything because she is so energetic. Last year when she told me about CityFresh, I didn’t really listen because I was so focused on nursing. But, now that I am focused on feeding Belle the best food, I started thinking more about farm shares and vegetables.

This month, my book club discussed Omnivore’s Dilemma. The discussion devolved into personal discussion because my book club friends only see each other so rarely, but we did come to conclusion that there is no “right” answer (and that if we never have to read about corn, it will be too soon.) The book did not come to many conclusions that work for a Clevelander in, though my guess is that Pollan’s next book takes up that charge. I am still focusing on reading Marion Nestle’s What to Eat, though I haven’t been able to find time to get to the library to check it out.

But, it did make me decide that it is time to do farm shares. My husband and I have talked about it for five years, but when it was the two of us, we felt like it wasn’t worth the money. But, now we are trying to weigh the different farms, and the pros and cons. For us, we would either want delivery (is it worth the extra fee) or pick up at Shaker Market. Ideally, we would need a full share and an option to buy meat and eggs.

But, what does one do in Cleveland in winter? I might can and freeze this summer, or I might not. But, it is my guess that next winter I will continue to shop at Heinen’s. I have been reading labels and thinking about how far my food flew or drove to get here. And, we don’t buy anything that has many ingredients.

As this month, we are trying to eat out much less, especially now that I have this global document of what we eat, we are going to make the most of our groceries. Inevitably, we end up composting some portion of the groceries that we buy. And, then we end up with at least one week of icebox experiments (scrounging in the fridge for dinner fixings.) So, we have made plans and have purchased just what we need. Stay tuned to see what we make of them.