Grocery Shopping Outside of the Store

Years ago when I was a brand new grad student, and lived mainly on apples and hamburger helper (true story!) I told a friend of mine that I would be truly wealthy when I no longer bargain shopped at the grocery store, and instead bought whatever food I was hungry for.

Well.  I'm not claiming wealth yet (at least, not North American standard wealth), but I have found some creative ways to buy the food I want to eat.  Except steak.  I can't seem to find a GOOD bargain steak.  And I love steak.  But that's a different thing for another time.

Here's my three favorite ways to shop!

1. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).  This is the first year that we've been a part of Clemson's {Campus} CSA, and I'm loving it!  First reason - its a surprise!  No, not my reason, but I love that each week, I don't know precisely what I'm getting, and I show up and the produce is fresh (they pick it the morning of market) and gorgeous and a lot of the time tooootally foreign to me.  Today, I picked up this beautiful bounty.

We've got Swiss Chard in all of the colors (Do they taste different?  I have no idea!)  We've got Romaine Lettuce, which is one of two familiar guys in the group.  We've got Collards, which I've heard tale of, but never had for my very own, and Kale, everyone's current posh green.  We've got Pok Choi (which is think is the granola-crunchy way of spelling Bok Choy, which is how everyone on pinterest and their brother spells it...).  There are also those... things... garlic scapes...?  And finally we had some handsome microgreens who I met last week, and .3# of radishes.  Which is 6.  6 radishes. Which an interesting thing all on its own.  What does one do with 6 radishes?  If you're RG, you throw them on the ground.  But me?  I've got no clue.

CSA's usually work like this: You (the non-farmer) buy a "share".  Farmers (not you) do the work of planting and harvesting.  Once they harvest (usually once a week) you go and pick up your share of the harvest.  You support them with cash dollars, they give you brand new, freshly picked food.  In my case, the Clemson CSA is also organic, which is a plus.  I love this food-getting method, because it pushes me out of my comfort zone (oops!  That was reason #2 why I love CSA) recipe-wise, and I get to see exactly where my food is coming from.

Really, Mariah.
You need to learn to take a proper selfie.

2. Local Food Exchanges.  This is a similar setup to the CSA, in that your food goes from local farm to your home with no store in between.  However, while CSA's are often seasonal (because harvesting), food exchanges can be year-round, offering such items as local milk (ours offers raw & low-temp pasturized), local honey, eggs, herbs, tea, preserves, and a variety of other deliciousness.  I mostly stick to the milk, honey, jellies and eggs, although I've gotten potatoes and lettuce (hydroponic).  

Its really neat to be buying directly from your local farmers.  Our food exchange (clemsonareafoodexchange.com) allows us to source directly from our neighbors, for a one-time fee, and get high quality stuff!  However, since there is no surprise, this has to be my second-favorite way of getting local goods :)  Buying like this can be a bit more expensive than buying grocery-store food (although often cheaper than buying organic grocery-store food), but food costs, and producing food costs, and really, maybe we need to think a little bit more about why things are so cheap, when they're really not... #stepsoffsoapbox

3.  NatureBox*.   Oh, I love Nature Box.  Now, Nature Box is not local.  But it is a whole bunch of other good things, like whole-food, chemical/artificial ingredients-free, and so fun.  It's a snack subscription, so its definitely not a necessity.  If you buy snacks anyhow, however, its definitely something to look at.  My current favorite is the Big Island Pineapple, which is SO good.  But I'm also getting some plantain chips, some flax-seed fortune cookies, and some surprises next month.  You can specify which snacks you want, or not!  There are lots of vegan and Non-GMO options as well.  Good snacks that are good(ish!) for me?  I'm in!

Oh, and if that wasn't enough, Nature Box works with feeding America to provide food to hungry Americans.  They've donated over 150,000 meals already.  Food for me, food for you, food for the hungry, just yes.  If you're interested in trying it out, you can get $5 off of your first box*.

So that's how I like to get my food.  Because I like to work a little bit harder to eat a lot better.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to try out my Spicy Roasted Pok Choi, which I never in a million years would have thought I'd say!  Eating anything interesting lately?  I'd love to know!  And if you want to see what recipes I've found for these foods, you can check out my Pin board, This Week's Meals.

<3 M.