Fresh - Delivered!

Since the beginning of the year I've been trying to eat more produce but like with most times I have made the resolve to do so, it's been a struggle simply because of the way produce makes it to the grocery store: mass produced and engineered for looks rather than taste, then picked before it is ripe so it spoils quickly. The reason people don't eat their fruits and vegetables is because they don't taste all that great.

I decided this year if I could spend a little more money to buy a little higher quality cheeses, chocolates and root beers, I could certainly spend more on my produce. I had the previous year gotten oranges delivered straight from the Florida groves and i did it again this year, followed by some Meyer lemons - who knew lemons could actually be almost sweet? - and this summer I had blueberries and cherries delivered. Friends and family got a false impression on the strength of my pocketbook and probably questioned my sanity for the money I was spending. but here's the thing: the food didn't go to waste, and here's the reason why: it was good. Not simply "good" as in "tasty" - it was that - but good as in fresh, ripe. I know, not all store-bought produce is bad. Every now and then I'll get a really good tomato or peach. But the others I bought the same day from the same bin in the same store are not. It's hard to get enthused about eating healthy when the supposedly healthy food doesn't taste good and spoils in your refrigerator.

And there is no shortage of groves willing to ship directly to you. Depending upon the season and how close you are to the groves, you might have to pay a premium for shipping. Some groves had great prices but their  shipping policies put the already higher prices over the top for me. True, I don't want my blueberries to be cooked before they get to me in the hot summer months. But I don't want to pay for shipping that seems to approach what the gasoline would cost me to drive to the Great Lakes region to pick them myself. Ordering itself is a bit of a leap of faith; if I balk at store prices for fresh Ranier or Bing cherries, do I really want to double that? It's not something I can do every week or even every month. But I tried it, had some success, and what I knew I would not consume right away I shared with family and friends and froze the rest. The ones I have tried so far and enjoyed are:
The Orange Shop 
Lemon Ladies Orchard
Pittman and Davis
The Blueberry Store
and I have bookmarked a few pages which look promising but for which I missed the growing season.

So after the oranges and lemons and blueberries and cherries came in their big boxes and my tummy was happy I decided to try the organic produce delivery in the sidebar ads I kept seeing on Facebook and my ISP homepage. Although supposedly geared towards my locale and my preferences, some of these ads didn't deliver within a hundred miles of my locale. So I did an internet search and discovered fresh produce can be delivered to your door if you live in New York, California, London or Australia. Awesome. But what about Colorado where I live? I did find two which deliver to the Denver metro area, Door to Door Organics and Mile High Organics. Both work essentially the same way: you create an account, select the size box of veggies and fruit you wish delivered, and whether you want it delivered once a week or every other week. You can even specify local in-season produce. And you can add fresh milk and other dairy, meat, bread, and other organic groceries. With Door to Door Organics, you supply an ice chest and they deliver to that with ice packs as needed; with Mile High Organics, they supply the chest and the ice packs. Reuse and recycling of all content is encouraged on both sites by the customer putting the thawed ice packs and empty produce bags and glass milk bottles, etc, back in the chest the morning of your next delivery. Costs vary especially depending on what size produce "box" you want plus whatever extras you've ordered, but they start at $25 and go from there. Does getting your produce delivered cost more than a run to Walmart or your regular grocery store? Certainly. It even costs more than going to natural grocers like Whole Foods or Sprouts or Vitamin Cottage, although the price difference is less there. For me, it is worth it, since I generally go grocery shopping when i am hungry so I overbuy, and this way I can better plan. I haven't yet worked out the intricaies; it is difficult to prepare meals for one. But in the month since signing up for both services, alternating weeks, I have wasted less food than before, so I'm not convinced I'm truly spending more.

Are these services for everybody? No, probably not. You have to weigh what you know you will use with the upfront cost  versus the long term cost and consider your taste buds as well. For me, if I am enjoying what I eat, I am going to eat it, and if not, I won't. So the extra cost is worth it to me. And weighing the cost of the organic foods against what I might spend in the vending machines because I (a) forgot to grab  something out of the fridge when I left for work or (b) grabbed for it but it crawled away under its own power because it had gone bad -- for the time being, it's worth the money and the time saved not going to the grocery store. 

Honorable mentions go to Abe's Market and iHerb.com, two online grocery stores for canned and boxed groceries. I haven't bought from them yet, and some of the groceries only come in bulk, but the prices seem very comparable to like foods at natural foods grocery stores.