TL;DR ADVENTURES ~WITH PHOTOS~
So, today Maart and I got up at 11 am early and went to the Norwich Farmer’s market. It was nice, though we mostly went to walk around and get some breakfast. One of our local bakeries sells stuff there, so I had a savory muffin (it had cheese, spinach, onion, and sundried tomato), while Maarten had a custard filled croissant.
(he's so cute!)
(it was SO GOOD.)
We got a few veggies, like some zucchini/yellow squash, as well as some sweet peas and radishes. I ate most of the sweet peas in the car.
THEN. THEN WE DISCOVERED THE MOST MAGICAL PLACE ON EARTH.
As we passed a side street, Maarten mentioned that his friend said there was a discount produce story there, so I was like “Hey, we should check it out” and so we did.
AS I SAID BEFORE, IT WAS MAGICAL.
Basically, it’s in this shed, and they sell the produce that grocery stores get rid of. The thing is, grocery stores don’t just get rid of things when they are going bad, they get rid of whatever is there when a new shipment of that product comes in. Lots of times, these foods are still in perfect condition, and they just throw them out into the dumpster. If you go and get food from the dumpster, it is considered stealing, even though it’s just going to the landfill. Some grocery stores don’t enforce this, but plenty do. (I don’t personally do this, but mostly because I am lazy/chicken. However, I did go watch a friend do it once. He was in a group called “Food Not Bombs” where they get perfectly good but thrown out produce and then every Sunday make a meal to feed the homeless. Food that is put in the dumpster is usually triple bagged, and is only put in with like fruits or veggies, ie not trash. I was amazed at how clean and not yucky it was.)
I usually buy mostly local produce. How food is grown/produced and how the people that grow it are treated is something I really care about. I don’t mind if other people don’t, so don’t think I’m one of those people who give you the stink eye if you’re not concerned about it. I’m sure I don’t care one bit about something you consider to be extremely important, and that’s just how it goes.
Anyway, I care more about not wasting the food that’s already here than I do about getting local products. None of the food I bought today was local/organic, but all of it would have gone to the trash if someone hadn’t bought it up.
This is also an awesome thing for us just in terms of what we could get. Maarten and I budget 50 dollars a week on food (which is actually less than the amount given to food stamp recipients if they are a two adult, no children household in NH). We eat very well, but things like fruit, which can be very expensive, is a luxury to us. We usually stick to apples and bananas, and then occasionally get a different piece of fruit (usually Maarten will pick a grapefruit and I get two plums, or we go in together to get half of a melon) as a treat. Carrots, potatoes and mushrooms are staples around here. (We also cheat a little. We bought ourselves a share in a CSA for Christmas, so we get a box of veggies from a local farm each week which doesn’t count into our monthly budget. Most of what we are getting right now is leafy greens. If we didn’t have this, we’d just buy less meat.)
For eighteen dollars, this is what we got:
(plus the flowers Maarten bought me. <3)
(YAY PRODUCE!)
That’s one baby watermelon, a quart of strawberries, a mango, two grapefruits, four peaches, two plums, three sticks of rhubarb, one lemon, an avocado, 2/3 pound of cherry tomatoes, a bag of button mushrooms, a bag of crimini mushrooms, a cucumber, an eggplant, two red bell peppers, and a green bell pepper for just 18 dollars.
If you’re not sure how good of a deal that is, just the baby watermelon, the strawberries, and the mango would have normally added up to 10 dollars. That is a HUGE difference. We are extremely happy, and have been eating produce like armageddon is nigh.
And for those of you that this was tl;dr, we got ~40 dollars of produce for 18. And there was much rejoicing.