I Love My CSA

Posted by Ecolicious in Articles, Food | 2 comments

A few times a year I drive to a house about 20 minutes from my house to pick up a basket full of fresh picked vegetables and a dozen eggs from a local farm. I am part of a CSA, short for Community Supported Agriculture. I have been a member of a CSA for 3 years, but am often too shy to tell anyone that I am a CSA member.

In tough economic times like these, people often see memberships like this as a luxury. I don’t. I see a membership to a CSA as a necessity for the health and well being of my family. I forgo buying makeup and hairstyling products, manicures and pedicures, new clothes and new shoes, so that I can fill my family’s bellies with healthy locally grown food. I don’t even have a cell phone and many see a cell phone as a necessity.

I also do it because I’ve learned that it is good for our environment, our economy and our farmers. Farmers are naturally in constant contact with the plants as well as anything that comes in contact with the plants. This includes any chemicals fed to or sprayed on the plants to help the plants ward off bugs and to help them grow strong and quickly. Not all CSA memberships are with organic farmers, but they are local and that helps too.

[amazon-product]193339210X[/amazon-product]So, as a CSA member I support my local organic farmer’s health and well being. I help support her financially too and in turn that helps support the local economy. Why? Because my grocery money goes to farmer in my community, not to farmer hundreds of miles away who often must raise prices to pay to transport the food to grocery stores miles and miles away. Since my basket full of veggies (sometimes I get fruit too) doesn’t have to travel far, my CSA membership also helps cut down on fuel use reducing the carbon footprint of my hungry family of five.

As a CSA member I am also exposed to new delicious foods (ex. spaghetti squash, permission, fresh organic eggs). In doing so, I have learned to make new interesting meals with these new foods and in the process I can teach my children all about it. They love it.

But my kids are the main reason I am a CSA member. I want them to eat natural pure foods, not altered food or foods covered with harmful chemicals that could harm my children physically or mentally throughout their life. So, it isn’t a luxury at all to me to pay a local farmer for her hard work to grow healthy (hopefully organic) foods that end up on my kids’ plates, when so much good comes from the membership.

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Image Credit: I Love My CSA by Ecolicious on Zazzle

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