Here's the synopsis of Fresh from their website:
FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.
Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.
Initially it sounds like a lot of environmentalist, tree-hugging balogna that I normally let go in one ear and out the other. But, I thought that I should give it a try since I find food interesting and it is free to watch on Netflix. Not only is this film about how bad industrial meat and produce growth are for our bodies (pesticides, loss of vitamin content from long transport times, bacteria in meat, meat with a poor nutrient profile), it is also about how it is bad for the people actually growing it. The film goes through how when you buy from a big corporation, you are buying food that is artificially cheap for a reason. It's food grown cheaply because of exploitation of farmers and use of cheap labor (i.e. prison workers, poor people, or illegal immigrants).
Because we are planning on going into business ourselves in the near future, this really struck a cord with us. Farmers are people that have mortgages, children to raise, and private health insurance to pay for. And that makes us.. exactly the same. Unfortunately animal welfare is usually not enough to make me spend more for something. But the welfare of another human being is. So, in the interest of supporting the individual, encouraging capitalism, obtaining better, more nutrient dense food grown in the way God designed for myself and my kids - I went back to the farmer's market.
I spent $70 Total for enough eggs and greens for the week. I actually remembered the breakdown!
Eggs - $4.50/doz x 4 = $19.00
The best thing about these eggs.. I talked to and laughed with the man and his son - a 12 or 13
year old boy who actually grew the chickens and harvested these eggs
Beets - $2.50 per beet x 5 = $12.50
Kale - $4.00/bunch x 2 = $8.00
Spring onions $2.50 x 1 = $2.50
Tomatoes $3.50/lb x 3.8ish lbs = $13.00
Kinda a sticker shock so I can't wait for my backyard tomatoes to take off.
1 bunch red chard x $3.00 = $3.00
Butter lettuce $3.00/head x 2 heads = $6.00
Bok choy $3.00/head x 1 = $3.00
Green cabbage $3.00/head x 1 = $3.00
I feel great about these purchases and sticking to greens and NOT FRUIT really helps keep the purchase price down. You see the one fruit item I did buy (tomatoes) was quite expensive. I hope that these price points help you - I think they are typical and fair. Most of this produce is certified organic. The eggs were $4.50/doz which sounds steep, but the "organic free range" eggs from the super market are at least 3.50/doz and they come from chickens that that have been fed soy or pelletized food + you can't really trust what the "free range" label actually means. The $4.50/doz eggs were from chickens that are truly free range, not fed soy, and allowed to forage outside for bugs which equals and entirely different nutrient profile from the store eggs. See here.
We are able to do this largely because we've gotten rid of organic milk or even milk of any kind in the house. My next post will be on that.
All in all, I am looking forward to the day I can have a backyard garden that 100% feeds my family, but until that day I will be going to the farmer's market and only supplementing fruit and the occasional odd thing from the grocery store. More work? Yes. More money? Yea. But totally worth it.
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