an abundant harvest is a’coming

It’s funny where the rabbit hole of internet surfing can take you sometimes. I sat down at the computer to read reviews about The Artist’s Way, a book given to me by a dear friend, and wound up signing up for a weekly delivery service that provides organic produce from small local family farms. How did that happen?

It all started because I saw I had this article by John Robbins (one of my fave authorities on humane and inhumane food manufacturing) open in a tab and thought “better read that now or I’ll never get around to it.” The article begins with some good news about the egg industry –  the USDA recently proclaimed that eggs actually contain way more Vitamin D than previously thought, making them even better for you (hooray!) As wonderful as that is, Robbins does what he does best and quickly shifts the focus to how these delicious and good-for-you eggs are actually produced – more often than not, in deplorable conditions that even the strongest of stomachs wouldn’t be able to handle. I nodded smugly in agreeance, recalling the fact that I personally go out of my way only to buy eggs that have that little green & white organic logo and say “free range” – even if it means making a special trip to Trader Joe’s. I mean, it’s the right thing to do, and I love animals.

But Robbins goes on to push the fact that “organic” and “free-range” labels actually mean diddly squat when it comes to humane practices in the egg industry (and probably the rest, too). So I decided to double check my facts and see how the eggs in my fridge measured up using the “Organic Egg Scorecard” created by the Cornucopia Institute. The scorecard ranks egg manufacturers and farms based on the best organic practices and the most ethical regard for the hens, doling out points for things like roaming space, access to the outdoors, and whether or not the farm clips beaks (a painful procedure that prevents hens from pecking each other to death out of sheer insanity from being lodged in a space so tight they can’t even raise a wing). The very best farmers get a cheeky “Five Egg” score.

One of the Five Egg farmers, Christian, with a fluff ball dog

Well, I’ll be honest with you. My eggs weren’t even on the list. But several other brands I’ve bought were (Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, O Organics, Land O’Lakes, and several other seemingly trustworthy household names), and to my supreme disappointment, every single one of them ranked only ONE EGG. What this means is that the eggs are produced on industrial-scale operations that grant no meaningful outdoor access. But it’s probably worse than that! Because unfortunately, many of these private-label One Egg manufacturers refused to participate in the Cornucopia Institute’s project – quite an interesting move considering the organic food market is one that requires quite a bit of brand transparency in order to gain customer trust and loyalty. I mean, whatcha hiding, friends? Better to know than not know, in my eyes.

I was pretty disgusted by what I found, so what did I do? I Googled a couple of the Five Egg farms that were in California and found that although none are available in a common grocery store, eggs from Alexandre Family EcoDairy Farms are available as an add-on in a weekly organic produce delivery service called Abundant Harvest Organics. At first I was intimidated by something like that – isn’t that only for super hippie people who live in Venice and work at co-ops on the weekends (when they’re not standing outside of Whole Foods with a clipboard)? But I read a bit more and was really intrigued, so I signed up.

The way Abundant Harvest works is like this: you sign up for a VERY affordable weekly box of produce from a variety of local farmers (around $20 for a small box) – everything from oranges to potatoes to thyme (whatever’s in season, of course) – set your delivery location (the closest one to us is in Santa Monica), and once a week, you go pick up your box at the scheduled delivery time. Before hand, you can check out which fruits & veggies will be included in that week’s box and add whatever ‘extras’ you want – coffee beans, eggs, nuts, even whole chickens, and they charge your credit card once a week. You can even “cancel” your subscription for the weeks you know you’ll be out of town or won’t need a box. I like that feature.

The best part about this service is that I know we’ll be getting fresh, organic food that hasn’t even been out of the ground for more than a day or so. Try finding that at your grocery store. Plus, we’re supporting local family farms instead of the big box manufacturing overlords. I’m super excited to pick up our first box of produce next Tuesday afternoon. One thing is for sure – this is absolutely one of those times I’m extremely grateful to be living in California.

Unfortunately, local means that this is of course a Central- and Southern California-only service, but I’m sure there are plenty of similar organizations out there doing the same thing.

And that’s my story for today. What did we learn? Something I quite frankly have already been told many times – that you can’t trust food products simply because they say “organic”, you’ve got to put in the research these days. A few minutes on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon should do the trick.

So tell me, have any of you read The Artists Way?