CSA – Everyone’s Doing It! (not really, but they should)

Week 0.5

I’ve been thinking about it for a while – nearly a year.  Everytime I go buy groceries I was reminded again to join a CSA.  No, it’s not some super secret society or league of super heroes.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it was first made known to me through the speech by Michael Pollan.  I have since read many books including :

• In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
• The China Study, T. Colin Campbell
• What to Eat, Marion Nestle
• Chew on This, Eric Schlosser

The reason for finally trying out a CSA subscription was that I wanted higher quality, organic foods while supporting local farms and reducing my carbon footprint at the same time.  Here are some other benefits of buying from local organic farms:

• Free of Chemical Pesticides
• No Genetic Modifications
• Seasonally Grown Produce
• Encourages Biodiversity
• Cleaner Air and Stewardship of the Land
• Tastes Better

If you’re interested in trying it out, most CSA farms have a trial period which is usually a month long.  It’s totally worth it and highly recommended.  I placed my order on Monday and it showed up on my front door on Wednesday.  Now that’s service!  Keep in mind that these farms have routes and may not be able to deliver to your residence.  However, a lot of them have convenient dropoff locations that should be able to match most people’s schedules.

After doing some research, I decided to go with Seabreeze Organic Farms here in the San Diego region.  This is what showed up on my doorstep today:

Seabreeze Organic Farms bag of goodies

all spread out

lettuce

passionfruit

collard greens

crisp, sweet apples & pomegranate

two very large avocados

some kind of sweet potato

one yellow onion

the sweetest smelling tomatoes

free range chicken eggs

edible flowers

Looking at all this stuff, I’m realizing I don’t know as much about food as I though I did.  I cook with mostly asian vegetables, but this is good.  It will force me to go outside what I’m used to and stretch my cooking.  I have never cooked with collard greens before, so this will be interesting.