5 Reasons To Try Your Local Organic Grocery Delivery

As adults, we know the value of vegetables. Yet, we find ourselves in rut when it comes to the healthy stuff. It’s a salad on Monday, sweet potato on Tuesday, broccoli on Wednesday, and repeat. And while we have dreams of rainbow colored produce, the variety just overwhelms us once we’re actually at the grocery store and we go back to the usual suspects.

So in an effort to eat better this year, especially to protect our long-term health and hearts, we decided to simplify our lives by trying out Spud.com. Spud is a free delivery service that will drop off organic, fresh, and locally grown and produced foods to your door.  And it offers you the option to buy pre-selected boxes of veggies and fruits. We tried this because it took the guesswork out of it for us, saving us time, money, gas, and worry over what to pick. (It remains a mystery on how to choose the best produce!). You can find similar services in your area through community supported agriculture programs (CSAs) by visiting LocalHarvest.org.

Want to know how our quest to make small, healthy changes went? Read our stories below.

Honest Ashley:

I have to admit, I do not cook much. My husband and I eat out most meals because we don’t know how to cook and we never have food in our house. Our refrigerator usually looks like it belongs on an episode of MTV’s Cribs: all beverages, no sustenance. We joke that one day we might become “real adults” with a kitchen full of fresh food.  In the meanwhile, boxed pasta and a jar of tomato sauce have become the usual dinner suspects because those 2 things never go bad and anyone who can boil water can throw them together and call it a meal. It is not the healthiest or the most exciting option, but we never seem to have the energy to do anything about it.

When I learned about Spud, an organic grocery delivery service that supports local farmers and works to reduce their carbon footprint through responsible business practices, I was intrigued. Not only did I appreciate their socially responsible initiatives, but I was motivated by the idea of having a variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables hand-chosen for me. By simply arriving on my doorstep, these vegetables would be staring me in the face and daring me to try to cook them. I would have no choice but to branch out from my plain noodles and jar of Ragu sauce. Visions of my professional chef-hood danced in my head. A sautéed snow pea here and a roasted broccoli floret there – the possibilities in my head were endless.

I signed up for the “Fresh Harvest” box right then and there. An assortment of locally grown and organic fruits and vegetables were just a click away; and guaranteed to be fresh and ripe when they arrived – taking out that squeeze and sniff guessing game that usually occurs in the grocery store produce aisle. I set my taste preferences (likes and dislikes) and eagerly waited for my delivery a few days later.

That Thursday, my Fresh Harvest box arrived! The Spud delivery man hid the box on my front porch behind my hydrangea bush just like I requested – I didn’t want to worry about someone stealing my box of freshness before I got home! Inside the box was an even larger variety of produce than I could have imagined: broccoli, string beans, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, jalapenos, apples, watermelon, and so much more. I was nervous about whether I could cook and eat so much, but the food looked so fresh and amazing that I quickly forgot about that possibility.  It was time to cook.

[DISCLAIMER: My chef skills did not magically appear when I opened my SPUD box. I guess that was a little too much to expect. However, my refrigerator quickly went from looking like it belonged in a college dorm to looking like it came straight out of a healthy living magazine ad.  Baby steps. That is all it takes.]

Honest Sarah:

For months, I talked about juicing. I seriously liked the idea and benefits of juicing—an extra nutritional boost to jump start my days and supplement my sometimes imperfect diet. But I only knew how to make three recipes, and I truly wanted to reap the rewards of juicing smartly with veggies, other greens, and not just sweet fruits.

Like Ashley, though, I was never sure of which combination of ingredients to buy or how much I needed to create enough juice for my family of three. I would buy too little and someone would miss out on a glass. Or I would buy too much and it would go bad before I could use it all. So, I never acted on my desire to incorporate green juices into my morning routine.

I was thrilled to give the Spud Juicing Club a try. The program is designed to make juicing convenient and easy to commit to. You can select a “Juicing Box” based on your preferences and the Spud team delivers the perfect amount of produce to make juice for a week. They even include recipes to accompany the specific veggies in the box. And if I was ever in need of inspiration, I could check out the juicing videos on their site.

The juicing boxes proved perfect for our family. We spent Sunday morning chopping all the veggies and fruits for our weekly juices. My toddler really had a blast helping and thought it was fantastic to drop the produce into the machine and watch it transformed into a liquid. Even better, he thought the vibrant colors of the juices—green, deep red, and a marbled orange—made them all worth drinking. I can’t beat that!

What did we learn?

1. By taking small, easy steps when it comes to your health, you’re more likely to stick with the change in the long run.
2. You don’t have to be a chef to make good meals—the more color you incorporate into your meal, the more interesting it tastes.
3. By saving time (and not having to go to the grocery store or sit in California traffic) we can devote more time to experimenting in the kitchen and making creative healthy meals.
4. Supporting local famers is more affordable than you think. Participating in CSA-type programs not only brings you healthy regional foods, but also helps small businesses thrive and reduces the overall carbon footprint.
5. March is National Nutrition Month, so why not try it out!