wow. great post suncloud.

refreshing to hear the other side of the "conventional is just fine"

I thought the following article, which I wrote last winter, might be of interest.
Best wishes,
Nora


Is Organic Always Better?
by Nora Lenz

The answer to this question is often presumed to be "yes", and I know it's like sacrilege to say otherwise in the raw world, but I really think it’s dogmatic not to. All things being equal, organic really WOULD always be better. All things are hardly ever equal when it comes to food selection, however. Firstly, for me cost isn't the deal breaker but for many people organic produce is cost prohibitive. I've actually heard aspiring raw fooders saying they are forced to eat cooked food because they can't afford to buy organic produce. They actually believe that cooked food is healthier than conventionally grown produce, so strong is their loyalty to the organic ideal.

Whether or not to eat conventional produce is a personal decision, like all others that have to do with what we eat, and I’ve never told anyone they need to eat conventional produce. I’ve only talked about what has served me in my own transition, and the rationales that I used to make those decisions. For me, it’s been important to know which of the “rules” can accommodate some wiggle room, and which ones I need to stick to 100% of the time. After devoting considerable thought to this issue, I’ve determined that “organic vs. conventional” is one of the rules I can be flexible on.

At this time of year my list of acceptable foods looks more or less like this: pears, mangoes, grapes, bananas, cherimoyas, melons, lettuce (romaine and iceberg), celery, durian, tomatoes and nuts, in order of their importance in my diet. That’s already a pretty short list but it would be even shorter if I ate only organic foods. There are some foods that I almost always eat organic (lettuce, tomatoes and bananas mostly), because organic versions are always available, affordable, fresh and ripe. There are others that I hardly ever eat organic because not only are they either not available organic or are hard to find, they are almost always inferior in quality, ripeness and freshness to their conventionally grown counterparts. For example, organic melons and grapes are only available at one store that I know of in my area, and they are very expensive compared to what I pay. Organic celery doubled in price this year to $2.99 per pound here in the Seattle area, and I’ve been told by produce workers that it’s because of the big freeze that hit California a few weeks ago. Yet I’m only paying 20 cents more per bunch than last year for the conventional celery I buy at QFC, and it presumably comes from California too. It tastes great, even better than most of the organic celery I’ve had. The celery I recently bought at Walmart for $.78 per bunch (which is exactly the same price I paid there last year) was even better. The next time I went back, I bought 4 bunches. (Where celery is concerned, btw, I suspect the primary factor affecting the taste is the practice that almost all stores employ of soaking it in tap water and then chilling it to bring it back to life when it either arrives at the store wilted or sits on the shelf too long. It occurs to me that organic celery and greens might be even more subject to this practice because of their slower turnover rate.)

Many raw fooders live in small rural communities and the foods they can get are very limited. I’ve been in small town grocery stores where the same 10 organic items sit on the shelf for weeks until they’re thrown away. I frankly think the only reason many of them stock organic produce is so they can brag in their advertisements about how progressive and health conscious they are. Even at the large market where I shop a lot (in a very large, upmarket community), organic produce doesn’t turn over fast enough to ensure that it’s always fresh. The prices are not unreasonable and the store is convenient to my home, but I almost never buy the wilted, over-refrigerated and generally unappealing organic food they sell there. I can’t imagine trying to stay satisfied eating a raw diet comprised of foods of that caliber. Our bodies are not designed to thrive on unripe foods or foods that have been partially destroyed by over-refrigeration or oxidation. When a food has been sitting on the shelf for 3 weeks because nobody wants to pay the high price, our bodies don’t give us a break because we’re doing the ‘right’ thing in buying organic. Our bodies just want the best, ripest, freshest, highest quality, tastiest food they can get.

Organic food does taste better sometimes, but not reliably. I honestly think that people who say that organic food always tastes better to them are not being guided by their sense of taste at all but rather by a belief system. I’ve thought about throwing an organic vs. conventional party to do some blind taste comparisons just to prove this. I’d be willing to bet the kind of money I don’t have that many of these people would choose conventional over organic in blind taste tests. I’ve been 100% raw for 7 years and my taste buds are mostly recovered from the abuse I previously subjected them to. When something tastes good to me, I trust that my taste buds know what they’re talking about. When I eat a sour, rubbery, over-refrigerated, imported organic grape, my body recognizes that the food is not nutritious. It’s not just not enjoyable, it not nutritious. The two are indelibly linked. Similarly, when I eat a sweet, crisp and tender recently harvested but conventionally-grown grape, the pleasure I experience tells me that the food is good for my body. When all but biologically-appropriate foods are excluded, taste and appeal IS nutrition. That has to be the case, otherwise our species would have died out long before we had the misguiding influence of modern nutritional “science” to tell us what to eat.

Social responsibility is often used as the basis for choosing organic all the time, but why is this burden worn so heavily by raw fooders? Don’t we realize the enormous social burden we’re lifting because of the way we choose to eat and live? It’s hard to imagine a world where everyone was as focused on their health as raw fooders are, so vast would be the improvements -- social, environmental and otherwise. The medical industry is enormously polluting and indefensibly unethical, to say nothing of the suffering it inflicts by making sick people sicker. Hospitals generate more hazardous waste than almost any other industry. And what about the misery inflicted on animals and the waste that is generated to produce drugs and surgical procedures? Then there’s the pollution and other environmental damage involved in the production of meat and processed foods, the packaging involved, the transportation, contamination of the air and water, etc. Raw fooders don’t contribute to any of this, yet we’re the ones who are most concerned about the social cost of a relatively tiny thing like buying non-organic produce. It doesn’t make any sense to me to compromise my health goals when I’m already preventing so much cost, pollution and suffering by eating the way I do. Let’s spread some of that responsibility around. There are plenty of people out there who don’t eat raw and who are laboring under the idea that all they have to do is “eat organic” to be healthy. How about if we let them create the market demand for organics that we raw fooders think we’re contributing to by buying organic even when it’s not in our best interests.

There are people who are attempting to go raw because they’re dealing with life-threatening illness. For them, this is not just the latest edgy thing or short-term weight loss program, it’s literally a matter of life and death. They need to be able to make decisions that serve their primary goal of getting well, not some noble, socially-motivated ideal. Making health the #1 priority is not selfish, it’s actually very UNselfish because for every sick person who chooses to remove the cause of his/her disease rather than go the medical route, hundreds of thousands of dollars are saved, innocent animals are spared and unquantifiable environmental damage is averted.

Everyday, raw fooders reject certain organic foods because they are otherwise unsuitable for consumption. Ever heard of organic white cheddar cheeze curlz? If we’re going to reject a food because it’s cooked and processed even though it wears the organic label, I say we need to apply our criteria universally. Organic and cooked is a fine reason to pass on a food, but what about organic and unripe, or organic and unfresh, or organic and prohibitively expensive? And if we’re going to reject these foods, what are we going to eat in their place if we aren’t open to eating conventionally grown produce?

Raw fooders who live by the “all organic all the time” rule DO manage to find lots of things to eat. However, I contend that many of these ‘foods’ are much worse than ripe, fresh, biologically-appropriate, conventionally-grown produce. New and transitioning raw fooders typically eat non-foods like cacao, maca and supplements, very complicated combinations of foods and food flavorings (salt, spices, vinegar, etc.) which cause digestion to be hindered to such a degree that a large percentage of the foods are not digested. That which is not digested becomes toxic waste, and the body has only two options in dealing with it: eliminate or store. You’ll never see a study “proving” it, but I’d go out on a limb and estimate that the waste produced by one complicated or miscombined meal is more than a whole year’s worth of pesticide residues. It’s true that some forms of waste are worse than others, but the fact is that pesticide residues, *when they exist* (and they exist to a much lesser extent than is commonly supposed, because nowadays farmers don’t spray fruit like they used to, they apply the stuff when the trees are dormant), are microscopic and easily dealt with by the body, especially that of a raw fooder who is earnestly seeking health by eating correctly and simply. If this weren’t the case, I would never have been able to make major improvements to my health eating conventional produce.

Most raw fooders come to raw food via involvement in alternative medicine, which has spawned many, many false ideas. The idea that the organic label should be the #1 criterion by which food is selected has become so popular among natural health practitioners that you’d think that eating conventionally grown produce is the primary cause of disease. Not only is it NOT a significant contributing factor in disease, the fact is that the alternative medical establishment is nearly as clueless about the real causes of disease as their allopathic counterparts. Eating organic is an easy way that erstwhile health seekers can delude themselves that they’re doing everything they can to be healthy, like going to the gym or drinking 8 glasses of water a day.

Food producers have jumped on the wave too, and as a result the word “organic” is fast becoming the most successful hype label of all time. Organic doesn’t automatically mean “healthy”, even though 98% of all Americans believe it to be so. We raw fooders are on to the tricks of Madison Avenue more than most people but I think we still allow ourselves to be unduly influenced by the marketing emphasis that has been placed on the word “organic.”

There are other factors to consider, too. Personally, my health is my #1 concern and I’m very keen to stay on track with my diet and lifestyle. I’ve done what I needed to do to make it work with my other obligations. When I was cooked and living mostly on shelf-stable foods, I used to shop once a week and stock up. For many reasons, now that I’m raw, that won’t work. I buy one or two days’ worth of food at a time, which means I shop everyday or every other day. I don’t always have time to go to Whole Foods and fight the hideous downtown traffic. I drive a lot, so I’m always passing grocery stores and I stop at the ones that are convenient. I’ve found some really great produce that I would not have found if I hadn’t been open to shopping in “normal” stores and eating conventional produce.

Just at the end of the plum season last year, I located an orchard in Eastern Washington where the sweetest, finest plums I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting are grown. I mean, these plums are deadly good. Before I tasted them, I thought the best plums I’d ever had were grown on an organic farm in another part of the state. I’m going to be picking plums from both orchards this summer, but I’m most looking forward to those conventional ones.

I’m just as appalled as anyone about the practice of using chemicals to grow food. There are lots of things about our modern world I find appalling, however, and there’s nothing I can do about them. I buy organic when it makes sense – when the food is worth the high price. I’ve heard it said that the high price of organic food is actually the “real” cost, since conventionally grown food carries the ‘hidden’ cost of environmental destruction. However, anyone who makes that kind of statement obviously doesn’t realize that food shouldn’t cost anything at all – it should be FREE like it is for all other animals on earth. Feeding ourselves in this strange world is difficult enough. Going raw is tough, too. It makes no sense to me to make it all harder than it has to be.

Warm regards,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

Post-script: Since I wrote the above, the organic question has gotten even blurrier with the hoops that the USDA is requiring growers to jump through. I was told by a grower in California last spring that an organic farmer friend of his had given up his certification because he was being required to wash his crop in a chlorine solution before sending it to market. This is to kill bacteria, which have been found on organic fruit in higher numbers than on conventional. When I managed to find unpasteurized almonds this year, it was at a farm that is in its 2nd year of the certification process. I collected orders ahead of time and when some people learned that these almonds were not fully certified, they pulled their orders. So, what this amounts to is that these people -- if they want to continue eating almonds -- will instead be buying almonds that may be sprayed with propylene glycol (a chemical 'pasteurization' agent) and they won't know because retailers aren't required to tell them. Unfortunately, organic doesn't mean chemical-free anymore. The chemical industry is finding ways to get around the organic label, because people fear GERMS even more than poisons. As more big producers get into the growing of organics (and as new germ-related threats are invented by the CDC and others, resulting in more bacteria paranoia), the diluting of organic standards will be even more of a problem.

I think the best way to support sustainable food production is not necessarily to buy organic all the time but to get out and look for food! Drive through alleys and look in backyards and go out to the rural areas where there are orchards and berry fields. Talk to the smaller, struggling farmers and buy directly from them. Nothing trumps the advantages that freshly-harvested, tree-ripened food has over refrigerated, imported, supermarket food. Right now I have 100 pounds of delicious, tree-ripened Angelino plums in my garage from an orchard that isn't going to be harvested this year. There are thousands of pounds still hanging on the trees, which will fall to the ground. I'd love to be able to sell them very cheaply to my fellow raw fooders (who buy organic produce from me), but most of these people are all under the delusion that since the fruit is conventionally grown, it is sub-standard. As it stands, they're paying about 10 times more for organically-grown supermarket garbage than they would for these fabulous plums and the plums are going to waste.

i find most (not all) conventional produce tasteless and bland ..especially hothouse stuff

i grow what i can, buy organic selectively and conventional to fill in the gaps

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Sunfood, that was a great article! You should submit it to www.newstarget.com to publish or some other venue. It was well thought out and I think would make an impact on others.

anaken Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>I avoid anything i'm aware
> of that is irradiated or hot water treated,
> organic or not.

Anaken (or anyone else who knows this info),
Just wondering...how can you tell what food has been irradiated or hot water treated?

Here's a few ideas for people who have difficulty finding affordable fresh, luscious organic produce:

-If you live probably just about anywhere in the US, you can jump through a few hoops and form a co-op with like-minded individuals or with only yourself as a member, and have the freshest available organic produce delivered to you by an organic distributor. Call each time when you order and ask the distributor about price deductions and quality.

-Or ask a nearby store if you can pay them to have an organic distributor deliver organic produce to you, you can decide what you want to order, and you can pick it up at the store.

-If a store already has organic fruit, but it looks pretty grungy, maybe you can search around and find a better organic distributor for the store. Or maybe you could mention to the manager that you'd love to have some better looking organic produce, and could they order it for you? If they don't have a good regular organic distributor, maybe you could suggest one. It might help to find some other people to go in with you, and you could talk to the manager as a group. You can possibly play an active role in improving your store's organic produce.

-If you live in a rural environment, you can usually find an area where you can grow some food organically yourself. Especially good for you and the planet, and less labor intensive are the food-bearing trees (IMO). Going to Japan was a real eye-opener for me. There aren't any "yards". Nearly every available land space is used for growing food. Why can't we do that in the US?

-Rural or suburban, in addition to calling on the farms, try introducing yourself to the neighbors with fruit trees or gardens in their yards. Often people - even strangers - have organically grown produce that they'd just love to share with you. And they may have tips to help you grow your own. You might offer to pitch in and help with the labor ocassionally, whether you buy the produce, or whether it's given to you for free.

-Perhaps the simplest solution: If you find that your food is becoming a very high priority in your life, you may be fortunate enough to be able to migrate to an urban or rural area where you'll be able to eat affordable fresh organic produce, year-round.

It may take a little effort and/or a little sacrifice to be able to increase our consumption of organic food, but most of us can do it!

I agree with rawnora that I'd much rather eat raw conventional than cooked organic (For me, that ain't sayin much, since cooked anything just about kills me!). But with a little work, if we set expenditure priorities and aim ourselves in the appropriate direction, I believe most of us can increase the amount of affordable fresh, luscious organic produce on our daily menus.

In Hawaii we say, "If can, can! If cannot,....(you fill in the blank)."

Dissing organic doesn't help anyone except the chemical companies. They LOVE that!

Organic certification has it's flaws, but all of us consumers can be an active part of the process, helping to keep the certification system as honest and as perfect as possible.

We can become members of an organic certification agency ourselves, or perhaps even volunteer to serve on the the board or be trained as certification inspectors. People are actually volunteering their own precious time for this good cause! Why not us?!

If we want to know what's in our organically labelled produce, keep in mind that we have the legal right to insist on a list of every fertilizer and soil amendment, and every other substance used for growing and handling every bit of organically labelled produce that we buy. To obtain the list for specific produce, ask the produce manager for: the name of the grower (if it's not on the label) and/or the distributor, the name of the certification agency (if it's not on the label), the state or country where the produce was grown, and the date the produce was delivered. The certification agency will be able to track down the list. If it's certified organic, the record is there, and we are all legally entitled to see it.

Even claimed organic growers selling from roadside stands and farmers' markets are legally required to supply that list to anyone who asks for it, along with copies of receipts for those fertilizers/amendments, and other substances their produce has been exposed to. If they don't have a list, find out from a certifying agent in your state what can be done to bring the grower into compliance with the law. Give the grower some time to comply, and if they don't, report them to the USDA.

Conventional growers are not legally required to reveal that kind of information to consumers.

Just to clarify something I read on this thread, only the CHEMICALLY grown almonds are "pasteurized" by treating them with propylene oxide. Almonds treated with propylene oxide cannot legally be labelled "certified organic". The unfortunate new pasteurization law applies to organic growers too, but organic growers use a thermal "pasteurization" process involving steam heat (rendering them UNraw). Either way, both the organic and the NONorganic almonds can no longer be legally sold by any grower or by ANY OTHER PERSON at any store or through the mail, unless they have first been "pasteurized" either chemically or thermally.

The only (perhaps possible) way around the law for acquiring unpasteurized organic OR unpasteurized nonorganic almonds (besides planting the trees yourself) is by leasing your own tree(s) at a cooperating orchard, and thereby becoming the legal grower yourself. Leasing could possibly be done by an individual or by a group. The deal is that you would pay the owner to maintain the trees and send you the nuts. Once you have them, you won't be able to sell them to anyone else (except possibly at a roadside stand?), but you will have RAW unpasteurized organic or nonorganic almonds. Try Googling around for organic almond growers, get some phone numbers, and give them a call.

Let's try to stay positive about potentially very positive things, like organic. Every time another store begins to sell organic anything, it's really a sign that more and more people are caring. Personally I don't mind at all if a store is just trying to jump onto some organic bandwagon. In fact, I find that encouraging.

Before those stores can ever jump onto any bandwagon, there has to be a bandwagon to jump on. The bandwagon is built by the people who cared. We can all help build the bandwagon!

And we can make it be good. I remember seeing my very first "organic" produce, probably some of the first to be sold in Berkeley, California, in a little health food store on the corner of Shattuck and Ashby. I think it was 1970, or thereabouts. The tiny little "organic" apples were definitely not appealing, but the idea that they even existed was so beautifully intriguing!

By now, how times have changed! Times changed because people cared. Enough people looked at those grungy little apples and instead of saying "yuck", they said, "this is an idea whose time has come." And then they said, "What can I do to help?" The more who care, the better.

We can all be part of the problem, or we can be part of the solution. It's difficult to be 100% organic. But if can, can. If cannot.......let's continue to stay positive and strive for positive results!

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> And we can make it be good. I remember seeing my
> very first "organic" produce, probably some of the
> first to be sold in Berkeley, California, in a
> little health food store on the corner of Shattuck
> and Ashby. I think it was 1970, or thereabouts.
> The tiny little "organic" apples were definitely
> not appealing, but the idea that they even existed
> was so beautifully intriguing!
>

omg, are you trying to kill me!?
you're reminding me of my visit to berkeley...
i visited my bro in berkeley and went
to the famous berkeley bowl market
and the outdoors farmers market and i
nearly had a raw vegan heart attack
with the amazing abundance and variety!

mtn biked to the top of mt tam (i left my quadriceps at the top)
saw gigantaur redwoods
hiking/biking at yosemite
saw some artsy freak wrap himself up in saran wrap, naked, at a concert
and be hoisted up above the crowd.
ack!
that's it, i'm packing...

am i off topic? oops..




> By now, how times have changed! Times changed
> because people cared. Enough people looked at
> those grungy little apples and instead of saying
> "yuck", they said, "this is an idea whose time has
> come." And then they said, "What can I do to
> help?" The more who care, the better.
>
> We can all be part of the problem, or we can be
> part of the solution. It's difficult to be 100%
> organic. But if can, can. If cannot.......let's
> continue to stay positive and strive for positive
> results!
>
>

To Lotusblossum9,

Irradiated produce still requires a label on the bin where it's located, identifying the produce as irradiated. The label will either say something like "treated with irradiation" and include the radura symbol (an abstract flower design that actually looks like a broken flower). Or the label will say something like "treated with electronic pasteurization". Ie. there has to be a label on the bin with some form of the word "irradiation" or some form of the word "electric".

Irradiated food cannot legally be labelled "certified organic".

Unfortunately, food exposed to steam or hot water doesn't require a label. If it's certified organic, you can get the name of the grower from the seller, call the certification agency, and ask them if the food was exposed to heat or steam.

Dear fresh,

You gave me the shivery goose bumps!

omg, are you trying to kill me!?
you're reminding me of my visit to berkeley...
i visited my bro in berkeley and went
to the famous berkeley bowl market
and the outdoors farmers market and i
nearly had a raw vegan heart attack
with the amazing abundance and variety!

Fresh,
Amen to that. My wife and I were there last December and we nearly fell over. The place is totally amazing. The other place that was quite impressive was the Davis Coop near UCDavis outside of Sacramento. Not quite as good as Berkley but still beats anything around where we live. We are so tempted to move to Cali for the produce alone. We also hit an amazing outdoor organic produce market in Miami that was pretty great. The Miami market had tons of raw fresh prepared foods for sale.

Awsome posts on this thread !

When my family and I first started buying organic we did a pendulum effect from one to the other and back again due to the price. Every time we went back to conventional we realised how much we were missing in flavour and quality and so ended up sticking to organic despite the fact that we needed a new morgage to do so, jokes.. Anyhow, I figure that it is worth the investment just because my health is worth more to me than anything else.

I find it interesting how there are many on these forums who are thriving on conventional produce. I wonder if Suncloud is right with her comment about not feeling the effects due to the bodies senses being dulled by over exposure ? Although I know there are some prety healthy folks on this board so I don't know. Maybe these people would do even better still on organic ?

I'm thinking that organic food is going to become more and more available in the coming years due to a number of factors. The main one being that I think there is a growing movement supporting a harmonious living ethic, as well as the eco revolution, and last but not least the peak oil crisis which will demand a change from our current oil intensive food production and distribution methods.

Bring it on I say.

If you are in Colorado there is Door to Door Organics. Very cool.
[doortodoororganics.com]
Gina

Door to Door Organics also delivers to parts of PA, VA, MD, DE, NJ, & NY..

Bruce

The link for Door to Door Organics in the Eastern USA is:

[east.doortodoororganics.com]

I agree with suncloud & nora

As an organic gardener, off & on since 1980, I have learned that you can grow your own organic produce just about anyplace in the USA if you try hard enough & REALLY want to..

Most of my produce has been grown in the backyard of a rowhouse, the total square footage which measures only 19 ft. wide x 60 ft. long..

A northern exsposure effectively eliminates the third of the yard closest to the house, & the concrete sidewalk & permanent shrubs eliminate one fourth of the remaining two thirds of the yard from cultivation..

Even with this small amount of land I was able to feed 4-6 people with all of the vegetable fruits (peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, squashes) that they could possibly eat..This was 10 years ago, before I was forced to return the garden to a lawn..

In addition I grew the best carrots, beets, chard, radishes, green onions, & lettuces that I have ever eaten..

My recipe for success??..Abundant amounts of compost made from uncontaminated grass clippings (neighbors) & leaves ( friends & neighbors with oak & maple trees)..

With raised beds & planting seeds or seedlings very close together, weeds are a VERY small problem..Five minutes a day (averaged out across the season) in a 9' x 29' garden was all I spent on weeding..

If each individual raw foodist grew SOME of their own produce organically, however small or large the amount, it would eventually reduce the need to buy produce from farms far from where you live..

Anything that we can do as humans to reduce the chemical burden on Mother Earth can only be a good thing..

Also, purchasing organic produce is absolutely vital..We need to do so in order to support those farmers who have committed themselves to swimming against the tide of chemical agriculture..

There are virtually NO subsidies or monetary help going to small scale organic farmers..

These farmers have to do it all for themselves with no government support..

None of the land grant colleges (state agricultural colleges) have programs that support serious organic agricultural research..

This is because they are all funded by the giant seed & chemical companies..

So wherever possible committ to doing the things that suncloud & nora have suggested in their posts..Purchase & eat as much organic produce as you can fit into your budget..

Start an organic garden!!

I would be glad to correspond with anyone in the Baltimore MD area interested in establishing an organic produce purchasing co-op, as this has been on my mind for some time..PM me if anyone is interested!!

Bruce

I was not as clear in my last post as I would have liked to be, so.....

All of the above suggestions only apply if & only if the organic produce is ripe & tastes good..

I absolutely agree that much of the organic produce that I bought when I first tried going raw tasted like c**p..

I only buy those organic items that I know I can trust, like bananas, unless I taste it first in the store..

If I can't taste it, I buy one, try it first for taste, before purchasing large amounts of any fruit or vegetable..

Otherwise, I purchase the conventional version..

It's better by far to eat a conventionally grown fruit or vegetable in it's raw state; then it is to eat it cooked, or not at all because it's not organic..

Bruce



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2007 01:40AM by baltochef.

I found

Denver.doortodoororganics.com

and its great. They deliver to the door once per week with as much local organic as possible. Obviously the season change creates some out of state products. They provide a nice variety of fruits and veggies for a great price. I order the medium box for myself and its tons of food for only $38 delivered. I end up sharing or taking it to a raw potluck when I have extra. If you leave an ice chest on the porch they can recycle the box and the greens don't wilt in the summer and winter. I love this discovery! I get to eat organic for a great price while supporting local organic farmers, supporting a small business (not corporately owned) and I don't have to go to the grocery and be exposed to impulse buys. Cool!