Buying Organic

Since one of the interns, Brenda Wiley, has been blogging on gluten-free foods, I wanted to share what we do when purchasing our groceries.

We do not have a store around here that sells organic foods.  There is only one store that has an organic section but only has selected items.  Once a month, we put in an order for organic products.  A huge semi-truck delivers them to a certain location on a scheduled delivery date.

Here are 2 of the online stores we order from:

United Natural Foods

This was the first company that we started purchasing organic products from since there were other families already doing this.  According to their website, they are the leading independent national distributor of natural, organic and specialty foods and related products including nutritional supplements, personal care items and organic produce, in the United States.

UNFI supplies customers with natural and organic products from 12 distribution centers located across the U.S.  The product selection includes a broad array of natural and organic groceries, frozen and perishable foods, personal care products, and nutritional supplements.

They sell most items by the case at a discounted price.  You are allowed to share the case with another family.  Since we have a large family, it makes sense to buy things in case lots.

UNFI are now carrying Albert’s Organics which is the nation’s leading distributor of quality organically grown produce and perishable items. They deliver to all major metropolitan areas, to most regions in the continental U.S., and to many areas in Canada.

Azure Standard

We also order from this company because some of the prices are better and you don’t have to buy these items by the case.  If we wanted to try a new product out, we can just order one item instead of a caseful of that item.  They are a smaller company so their prices are less expensive.

Their website tells how they got started – “Our family was caught in the cycle like most farmers, until 1971 when we took our farm out of the chemical cycle “cold turkey,” so to speak. In the first year, the chemical-dependent land only produced a small percentage of what it had formerly produced. At this point most farmers would have gone back to chemical use for economic survival. But, sticking to our convictions, we fought ignorance and lack of information in order to keep on without chemical use. As the years went on, the soil slowly regained its natural fertility.”

Of course, we try to grow our own in our garden or try to buy local but if there is something we can’t get, we go through companies like these.  See if there is one in your neighborhood!

photo credit: karimian photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi)