A Month of Veggies

So we have been customers of the farmers' co-op Grow Alabama for over a month now. We have been eating a ton of organic fruits and vegetables every week, and we are loving it! For the first time in my life, I'm actually eating the recommended 3-4 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day! I LOVE that I get this huge box of produce every week. It has become a personal challenge to serve everything I get within seven days, before the next box comes. So far, I have made it every week (sometimes cooking the final bit from the previous week on the Tuesday night that I get the new veggies). We eat a completely vegetarian meal a couple times a week, mostly so I can afford to buy better meat on the nights we eat meat, like fresh fish, seafood, organic beef, etc. I'm getting my eggs from Grow Alabama now, as well as buying organic, lactose-free milk at the grocery store. The milk is the only part of all this that is stretching our budget. The boys drink about two gallons of milk a week (Marcus and I don't drink any), and that type of milk costs $9.00 a gallon. That comes to just over $80 a month on milk. (Of course, the non-organic lactose-free milk I was buying costs $8.00 a gallon, which was $72 a month, so not a huge difference to go organic there.)

Overall, I feel much, much better about what I am cooking for my family than I did before we joined the co-op. It gives me weekly accountability, as well as a better standard of food. So, thanks, Grow Alabama, and keep up the good work!