A great way to save money and the planet... one bin at a time

It might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but buying organic, is definitely good for the planet, and good for our health. But how can buying organic be a great way to save money, may you ask? I know organic, as a general rule, is more expensive, so I used to buy it when I could, but not always. Not to mention the issue of actually finding the organic produce in my little town, made it tricky to find anything other than organic apples, bananas, leafy greens and the occasional carrots and celery.

Then a few months ago, a friend of mine decided to organize a bi-weekly produce order, like a CSA. There are two size of bins to choose from, but I always get the small one, since it's just the kids and I at home. And at $36 for a bin full of all this, it's hard to go wrong!

This is what was in our bin last Thursday:

• oranges, two varieties
• apples, two varieties
• bananas
• 1 mango
• bok choy
• 3 avocados
• asparagus
• green onions
• romaine lettuce
• cauliflower

To tell you the truth, I've been having a love/hate relationship with my produce bin. I love variety when it comes to my fruits and veggies, and usually end up buying more from the grocery store as well. And then there's the issue of "you don't get to pick what comes in your organic bin". It's been a few times that we've had bok choy in our order, and I still don't have a clue what to do with it. And there's been produce that went bad before I was ready to eat it (a good indicator that pesticides do more than just repel bugs... imagine what it's doing to your body! if it takes your produce twice as long to go bad?!). I got tired of throwing food out. Especially with the recent rise in the price of food, the global food crisis, and just making waste in general. It just didn't seem worth it.

And then I went a few weeks without it, and was really missing it. So, what to do?

With the price of food going up considerably here recently, I decided to bring back the produce bins to our kitchen, but I am going to do things differently this time. Here's how:

• Make sure I use up most of the fruit from the bin before buying more at the store. (I really like variety, especially in fruit. But I'll have to get used to doing things differently now in order to avoid waste. Because I hate waste more than I love variety).

• Find recipes online for the veggies I have no idea what to do with (aka the bok choy). If I can't use it all while it's fresh, freeze it and use up at a later date.

• Take out the juicer! (When this last order came in, I still had more than a few organic apples left in my fridge, so we juiced them. The kids love helping making fresh juices and my son loves drinking fresh fruit/veggie juice. My daughter has never liked any of the juices from the juicer, but this was the first time that I did a single fruit (and no veggie) juice. She had a few sips and though she didn't drink more than that, I could tell she could get used to it after a few tries :)

• Fresh fruit (and veggies!) make excellent snack on the go! Produce is the original fast food, invented by nature, not by man :)

So now, I'm looking forward to get my produce bin every couple of weeks, and see what's going to be in it. I'm looking forward to eat our way through it. I'm looking forward to the challenge of finding new and creative ways to use up the produce. I'm looking forward for us to eat our way to health!

(If you've never been part of a csa, you should look online. I did a search online once, for my area, and was very surprised to see that there was several options available.)

Have a happy healthy day!