Spokesman Review, Virginia de Leon
Published January 23, 2008
My family isn't gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but boy, do we love our food. Although we shop often enough during the week, the four of us (that's two adults, a preschooler and toddler) devour everything and our fridge is empty again by the weekend.
So when we made some recent lifestyle changes that led us to slash our monthly income to almost half, we had no choice but to rethink the way we spend money on food.
No more grocery shopping without a list, for sure. And definitely no dining out.
But as a family that also values local and organic fare, we had to ask ourselves: How about just basic groceries? Can we still afford to buy even a few organic products? And, if we choose to pay a little extra, is it worth the price?
After talking to other frugal folks who love to eat and don't want to skimp on healthy food, I've discovered the answer is a resounding "Yes!" Buying organic and local doesn't have to break the bank, they say, but it does require some time and careful planning.
Putting organic and local food on your plate is often a matter of setting priorities, says Mary Naber, a Spokane teacher and volunteer farmer at Riverfront Farms in the West Central neighborhood.
"I have a hard time understanding people who refuse to spend a few cents more per pound on organic produce, but then go out and buy a $3 latte," she says. "It's a question of how you choose to spend your time and money."
Eating organic food, according to Naber and many others, requires a gradual shift in philosophy. The shift often requires slowing down and sitting together at a table to enjoy home-cooked meals. It also means paying attention to where our food comes from and asking questions about how it was grown and how it got to our table in the first place.
So if you're on a budget but still want to include as much local and organic food in your diets, here's a list of tips we've gleaned from frugal foodies and others who make an effort to buy organic and local goods:
*Avoid the "Dirty Dozen"
Do your produce shopping based on the "least contaminated" list or start by buying just a few organic items.
Argyle Baukol, the living green specialist for Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs, works with many low-income families who can barely afford to buy groceries, let alone organic products. So Baukol gives them a handout that includes a list from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group on the "most contaminated" and "least contaminated" foods.
The nonprofit identifies the following as the "dirty dozen:" apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, grapes (imported), nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach and strawberries. The least contaminated include: asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, kiwi, mangos, onions, papaya, pineapples and peas. Check out
www.foodnews.org for the complete "Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce."
"The 'Dirty Dozen' gives folks a list in which they can get the biggest bang for their organic dollar spent," says Allison Fisher Gray, the green building/sustainability specialist at the Washington State Department of Ecology. "As consumers adjust to the increased cost, then they can work their way down the list and gradually incorporate more and more organics into their shopping basket."
When asked about the products that they buy only in organic form, many people absolutely insist on milk.
Mary Eberle, a Spokane artist, also buys dairy products, corn products, meat and strawberries only in organic form.
"My personal opinion is to buy organic when fats or animal products are involved," says Rebecca Kemnitz of Spokane. "Plants and animals accumulate toxins in fatty deposit area or in excretions."
Kemnitz, a licensed acupuncturist, also avoids buying nonorganic food from foreign countries since many still use pesticides that are banned in the United States and Canada.
*Join a co-op or start an informal buying club among friends
Once a month, Angie Dierdorff of Spokane gets her groceries delivered by a semi-truck.
She and others in the area are regular customers of Azure Standard, a business out of Dufur, Ore., that specializes in natural, organic and earth-friendly foods (
www.azurestandard.com). Dierdorff and her friends spend a total of at least $400 in groceries, which is then delivered free to one of their homes, located within three miles of the truck's scheduled route.
The small company brings food directly to customers, buying clubs and retailers throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Their routes include communities along I-90 from Ellensburg to Missoula; Highway 95 from Lewiston to Bonners Ferry, Idaho; and also several towns in North Central Washington.
"I like Azure because they grow and farm a lot of the items they carry for sale," explains Dierdorff, a writer and mother of two boys. "And even though they aren't in Washington, Dufur, Ore., is still local compared to where most of our food comes from."
Many others also recommended Fresh Abundance, an organic and whole foods grocery store in Spokane that offers free delivery (
www.freshabundance.com).
Another option is to support a Community Supported Agriculture program by buying a share of food (usually vegetables, fruit and sometimes eggs) from a local farm. To learn about local CSA options, check out
www.localharvest.org.
*Buy in bulk
The bulk bins at Huckleberry's, Fred Meyer, Pilgrim's Natural Foods Market in Coeur d'Alene and other area stores offer spices, grains, beans, cereal, nuts and other products at cheaper prices per ounce or pound. The bins also allow shoppers to buy the exact quantity they need.
Another popular spot for organic bulk food in Spokane is Costco, which has increased its organic offerings in the last two years. During a recent trip to the Spokane Valley warehouse, some of the deals I found included whole organic chickens from Coleman Organic out of Colorado for $1.99 a pound; three half-gallon cartons of 1-percent organic milk from Wilcox Farms in Roy, Wash., for $7.99; and for under $9, six boxes of Pacific Natural Food organic, free-range chicken broth.
*Buy food in season
Ask around and many will tell you that the farmers' markets throughout the region remain among the best places to buy local produce, meat and other products from May to October. For a list of area farmers' markets, check out
www.localharvest.org. During the winter months, some organic meat and produce as well as fresh bread are sold every Thursday at the Community Building, 35 W. Main Ave. in downtown Spokane.
*Compare prices
Supermarkets including Rosauers, Fred Meyer, Yoke's and Safeway now sell organic produce and products in addition to their conventional offerings. In fact, roughly three-quarters of traditional grocery stores carry organic food, according to a 2002 Food Marketing Institute Study.
Expert shoppers say that if you restrict yourself only to specialty organic stores, chances are, you're paying way too much for groceries. Also, don't forget to check out the grocery ads in Wednesday's newspaper and be on the lookout for coupons.
*Shop around
If you have some time, it sometimes pays off to stop at some of the discount stores.
Dierdorff and a few other families recently discovered some organic bargains at the Grocery Outlet, which specializes in bargain brand-name products and often changes its inventory each week.
Some of Dierdorff's finds include a box of Cascadian Farm Clifford Crunch Cereal for $1.99; Back to Nature Bakery Squares for 99 cents a box; and a can of Natural Value garbanzo beans for only 59 cents.
"I think the organic items at the Grocery Outlet stores have been a well-kept little secret for a while now, but they are getting more and more of these things in, so the secret must be out," she says. "I hope that increased demand will only improve the varieties available and keep prices low, rather than the opposite."
*Grow or raise your own food
Dennis Roberts, owner of Mt. Sunflower Natural Market, a health food store in Colville, never has to buy meat.
For nearly three decades, he's been raising Black Angus cattle as well as sheep on his 200-acre farm in Rice, Wash. He also sells the meat to a few friends, who make a commitment to buy a share of a calf and a few lambs every year.
When the cows are sent to the butcher, Roberts and his friends can choose the types of cuts they want - roasts, sirloin, tenderloin - and still pay significantly less per pound compared to the price of organic ground beef that's sold at groceries.
Although not certified organic, the bull and heifers as well as the sheep on Roberts' farm eat from the pastures, receive no medication or shots and are raised in an organic manner.
While most people probably don't have the acreage to raise livestock, anyone with a yard can certainly grow tomatoes, green peppers and other vegetables and fruits during the growing season. Naber, who loves to garden in her backyard, rarely goes to the grocery store in the summer, she says.
People who live in apartments can grow herbs near a sunny window or be part of community gardens such as Riverfront Farms in West Central or the one organized by the Northeast Community Center. For a list of other public spaces where people can garden and grow food, check out:
www.spokanegardens.com.
*Make friends with a farmer
If you want to really learn about food and find some deals, get out of town. But instead of going to Whole Foods in Seattle, Roberts suggests getting to know the folks on the farms.
"People become so city-ized that they're stuck going to the grocery store all the time and have no communication with people who grow their food," he says.
That's why he encourages friends in Spokane and other cities to develop relationships with farmers in the outlying areas. In addition to learning more about their sustainable methods of growing food and the chance to buy a share of a cow or vegetables, you might be able to barter. In the past, Roberts has traded some of his beef in exchange for electrical work or chores around the barn.
"There are farmers all over the community who are doing organic even though they're not certified," he says. "When you shop at a store, you don't have to talk to anyone. When you hook up with a farmer you can trust, you eat healthier and you establish a relationship. There's a benefit to that because we take care of each other."
*Share and trade
Every summer, several members of Salem Lutheran Church in West Central bring extra cucumbers, apples and other produce from their gardens to share with others in their congregation as well as people in the neighborhood.
On several occasions, Salem's pastor, the Rev. W. Thomas Soeldner, has noticed pears or apples on the ground in someone's yard and knocked on the door for permission to pick fruit from their trees. "People don't recognize the fact that there are tons of food on fruit trees and bushes all around the city that are going to waste because they are never harvested," he says.
So Soeldner takes that fruit and brings it to the Lutheran Book Parlor next door to the church for neighborhood residents to enjoy.
*Learn to cook from scratch
After recently finding a $10 bread machine at Value Village, Naber has been baking her own organic wheat bread. It takes less than 10 minutes to throw the ingredients together, she says, and the result in a few hours is warm, fresh bread at just pennies a loaf.
Naber also tries to make everything from scratch, including salad dressing and sandwich spreads. "I don't buy any processed foods," says Naber, who finds most of her recipes from a book called "Laurel's Kitchen." "When you buy processed foods, the cost just skyrockets."
Eberle, mother of two, highly recommends making your own baby food. "We would not think of serving our older children TV dinners every night, but we, as a nation, serve our babies processed baby food because we have been trained to do so," she says.
Cook and puree vegetables before freezing them in ice-cube trays, or buy a food grinder and serve your baby the food you are eating, Eberle says.
Kaaren Bloom of Spokane offers this advice: Learn to cook using what you have instead of simply following a recipe.
"It really helps to be into cooking," says Bloom, who spends about $100 a week on groceries for her family of three in addition to another $200 to $300 a month on bulk items from Azure Standard. "The more we cook, the more we get into making more and more dishes from scratch. What food we use, how it's grown and where it comes from becomes more important. We probably do spend more per month on food than others, but it has become a priority for us, and consequently, we don't eat out much."
*Freeze and can food
The winter season doesn't make it easy to buy affordable organic food, acknowledges Baukol of SNAP. "Low-income families may have no other choices than to eat conventionally grown food all winter long," she says. "But this obstacle is a good segue into canning and preserving?"
Planning ahead can make winter eating a lot cheaper and healthier, says Naber, who dries apples and cans or freezes other fruits and vegetables that she picks during the summer and fall months.
*Consider becoming a vegetarian or eating less meat
This may not be a serious option for some people since meat is a staple in most American diets and a great source of protein. But beef and pork and fish such as wild salmon also can put a dent in your monthly food budget.
Bloom's family isn't vegetarian, but to save money, they eat plenty of vegetable-based meals and use meat sparingly.
"Stretch your use of meat," she says. "For chicken, we buy a whole chicken and use some meat for meals, then make about a gallon of stock to use the rest of the week for other meals like soups or in dishes like risotto or to freeze and use later."
SIDEBAR:
LABEL LINGO
The Center for Science in the Public Interest can help shoppers decipher the labels on produce, meats and other groceries. Here are the definitions you'll find at the grocery store:
ORGANIC FRUITS AND VEGETABLES were grown without synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers or sewage sludge and haven't been genetically engineered or irradiated.
ORGANIC BEEF AND CHICKEN come from animals that weren't the offspring of cloned animals. They were raised on 100 percent organic feed, were never given growth hormones, antibiotics or other drugs, and their meet was never irradiated.
ORGANIC MILK comes from animals that, for at least the last year, were fed 100 percent organic feed and weren't given antibiotics or growth hormones like rBST.
ORGANIC EGGS come from hens that were fed 100 percent organic feed and were never given growth hormones or antibiotics.
ORGANIC SEAFOOD doesn't mean anything since the USDA hasn't defined the term.
CAGE-FREE EGGS are not necessarily organic. They come from hens that were not confined to cages and that may or may not have had access to the outdoors.
FREE RANGE POULTRY have access to the outdoors, but for no minimum time. They're not necessarily organic.
NO ANTIBIOTICS ADDED can appear on labels if the producer can document that the animals were raised without antibiotics.
NATURAL meat or poultry contain "no artificial ingredients and are no more than minimally processed." They're not necessarily organic.
Source: July/August 2007 edition of the CSPI's Nutrition Action Healthletter.
The "Dirty Dozen"
If you can't afford to buy all organic produce, start by buying from this list, which researchers have found to be the most contaminated conventional produce:
Apples
Bell peppers
Celery
Cherries
Grapes (imported)
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Potatoes
Red raspberries
Spinach
Strawberries
Source: "The Shoppers Guide to Pesticide in Produce"
at
www.foodnews.org
Shopping tips
These suggestions for buying organic on a budget are just the beginning. If you have other ideas, post your tips on Food Editor Lorie Hutson's Fresh Sheet blog and continue the conversation. You'll find it at spokesmanreview.com/blogs/freshsheet
