Put your salad to the test!

You are here at the Rey, a large local supermarket chain, and you see all the shiny beautiful US grown apples, cucumbers and polished green peppers. How can you resist. The apples are so shiny that you can see your reflection in them and the green peppers look plastic they are so perfect. What you may not realize is the chemicals and the polishes that are used to make the fruit look so attractive. You then show up at the organic fruit market. The green peppers may be a bit smaller, the tomatoes are not as brilliant and the cucumbers are not as robust. So why would you go organic, well it is the TASTE.

Recently we bought our first basket of organic produce from our local Organic Market. All the food is grown in El Valle and brought to Coronado for pick up. You can choose from 3 different size baskets, and each basket contains a variety of items. We sorted everything out and made a salad with some of the items. The salad tasted so good. Why so good? Because you are eating pure vegetable. It has not been induced with chemicals to make it bigger, or sprayed with pesticides, and it hasn't been polished with wax to make it look nicer. There is a good article we found that discussed both sides of the debate.

US Department of Agriculture reveals that since the 1940's the mineral levels in fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy hae declined substantially in conventional foods. Combine this with earlier (pre-ripened) picking, longer storage, and more processing of crops, and it's not surprising that we may be getting fewer nutrients in our food than we were 60 years ago. Organic food has more "dry matter" (i.e. food). Because of this there are higher levels of nutrients in organic produce. (www.grinningplanet.com)

So our monthly organic market is growing and will be offering more variety and will be bringing together a few of the local organic resources in one place. I feel that this will be helping us all to eat healthier. As the market grows we might even be able to purchase our different size baskets more than once a month!