Working toward a healthier family

For the past few years, I've tried to make better, more natural choices for my family in terms of food, supplements, skin products, cleaning products, and the like. My time and money are both very limited, but for the most part we've been doing fairly well on everything except food because I've been able to order these things from a company that manufactures nontoxic products. The food part is another story since the nearest health food store is an hour away and I rarely have enough time and money at the same time to shop there.

This weekend, though, I found out about a new community supported agriculture program that I am extremely excited about. A local natural foods market that is very close to where my husband works and is in fact only a couple of blocks out of the way for him on his trip home — I found out about it at the same time I found out about the new food program — is offering monthly food baskets. For $60 a month prepaid for three months, you get a very large basket of naturally-grown produce and grass-fed meat products (if you choose to purchase the whole food basket; there is no meat, of course, in the vegetarian basket) that are raised without the use of antibiotics or artificial hormones.

These baskets contain seasonal fresh foods like greens, herbs, grains, honey, nuts, range eggs and poultry, pond-raised shrimp, and the like from local farmers. The basket for January even included greenhouse tomatoes from a nursery in my own hometown! These healthy items are exactly what I have been wanting so badly for my family to eat. The baskets look to contain enough food to constitute the bulk of our groceries for the month. The thing is, this is only offered to 100 families for this year and one must apply to participate on a first-come, first-served basis.

This program is a win-win situation all around. Families get quality, healthy foods for a good price and local farmers are supported. I will most certainly be on the phone first thing tomorrow morning to get information on how to apply and to get an idea on the possibility of us being able to participate. I hope that soon my husband will be picking up baskets of delicious fresh produce and meats every month and bringing them home to us. I'll be able to rest a lot easier and not worry so much about what I'm feeding my children!

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