Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 8, 2013 - 09:38pm PT
Hey yall, just putting this out there because I know a lot of you like to eat healthy and Organic...
I work for a local bay area CSA, Farm Fresh to You. We deliver customizable boxes of Organic Fruits and Veggies directly to your door (if you live in the bay area of course!).
We supply Whole Foods, but when you get it direct from us you get a fresher product at a much better value.
Find us online at http://farmfreshtoyou.com, and put in promo code 5607 so you can get a 20 % discount on your first box. No commitments, and 100 % guaranteed.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'm really proud to work for Farm Fresh to You, we grow great stuff.
here's another one very close to us in the Santa Rosa area
Twin Palms Ranch, farmers Louis and Karen McKenzie , some of you know Louis and Karen. Louis is a climber skier and mountaineer as well as a farmer and many of you have climbed with him. Karen is an amazing artist in multimedia. I had a subscription to their farm which was a great success especially if you like gourmet food. Not the usual fare and always a good variety of very tasty products.
My gf decides on our CSA. I guess there are only 2 that are "easy" to get up here in Tahoe. If any of you hippay folks hear of any more available for us on the south side, we'd be happy to look at it.
Is there a place that delivers/supplies raw milk to the bay area?
Do you have Sprouts Markets up there? They carry Organic Pastures organic raw milk, an awesome product. I saw an hour and a half presentation by Mark McAfee, the owner of this dairy, at the annual Real Foods Convention in Pasadena last year. It was a real head turner.
Or check their website to see if there is a local vendor.
Thanks Ksolem! I found that Rainbow Groceries here in SF would be the place from your Organic Pastures link. Sad that Whole Foods stopped carrying raw milk.
Raw milk has been under siege from the big dairies in CA. They are afraid that if a bad batch kills someone it will hurt milk sales. Not sure what the current state of affairs is, I am sure it is somewhere on the internet. Our local store quit carrying raw milk because they were not selling enough.
I used to give it to my son when he was younger, he has an amazing immune system. He is 9 years old and has had one ear infection and two colds his entire life. Not saying it was the milk alone.
Sad to see Grant Farms go down the drain here in Colorado. Clearly the business is/was a mess financially but they produced nice crops of true organic veggies. Hopefully the land remains pesticide free. Keep selling the organic goodness!
raw milk is the SH#T! its too bad you cant get the raw colostrum anymore. if only more ate locally, and dealt more directly with the farm through CSAs. i suppose the solution, atleast in the milk department, is there need to be more dairy based CSA's ( CSD's?). maybe the old tradition of a local milkman should be rekindled.
Khanom, what's the problem with 300 acres? Seems like you are dissing it... without much thought. Or maybe I am misunderstanding your intent.
The original homestead act gave individual settlers 160 acres. It was later extended to 320 acres.
It takes less than 1/2 acre to feed a vegetarian, and just over 2 acres to feed a meat eater. At most 300 acres could feed 600 people. The Bay Area area has a population density of about 1000 people per square mile. It isn't at all unreasonable to consider a 300 acre farm "community supported."
Raw milk has been under siege from the big dairies in CA. They are afraid that if a bad batch kills someone it will hurt milk sales
Actually it is the processing companies which are against raw (unprocessed) milk and other products like almonds. And it is not about concern for your health. Follow the $.
McAfee is great to listen to. This link will lead to others.
I don't have anywhere near 300 acres, though of course I wish I did.
Wes, you ignorant assh0le you (which I say with great affection). It's not the size, it's how you use it.
But apparently I was incorrect anyway. Depending on who you believe they have either 500 or 700 acres in production. The latter number is from the Capay Organic website.
This company represents perfectly the sort of massive-scale industrial agriculture that they themselves try to make you want to avoid. They market a small-scale down-home vibe while expanding like crazy, but in size and geography. They are headquartered in downtown SF but have farms all over. They sell at markets nearly 500 miles away. They are long past the scale where you can meet the person who pulled the carrot from the ground. They embody that huge disconnect between farm and table initiated by industrial conventional.
When you break that connection you lose something very very important, and I'd encourage anyone to think seriously about that.
I call this scale and these practices "industrial organic". If you are buying from these people, ok, that's better than many... but don't have any illusions about the small family farm -- what you are getting in that box is not all grown there, or indeed locally. And don't think for a moment that you are getting the highest quality or freshness.
Probably I need to make it absolutely clear that I do believe Capay Organic/Farm Fresh to You is basically a good thing in terms of changing distribution models. It's just not the best things for consumers, the environment, or food awareness.
I agree that there are potentially better ways, ie: more localized farms, community gardens and public spaces filled with edible landscaping, but Capay has a good thing going.
It's not just coming from one farm, we support over 20 organic farms, some of which are so small that without Farm Fresh as a Buyer, they would have very little chance of survival. It is as local as possible while still meeting the demands of our customers who want a wide variety available year round.
The quality is excellent, and we guarantee everything we deliver.
The freshness is better than almost every other option, usually 3 days or less from the farm to the home. Want fresher? Grow your own!
Plus, being a larger CSA, we can be commitment free and deliver directly to peoples homes without having to have drop locations that people have to go pick up from. All in all, it's a company that I am proud to work for.
karo, I am quite interested in what you have to say. I have a particular view of this company but naturally I'm missing a lot of information.
Three days is not bad if that's indeed true. However reports from customers about freshness appear to be mixed. And you should know perfectly well that you can get fresher without growing yourself. If you go directly to the farmer, either at a market or to the farm itself.
For the uninformed: why is freshness important? Because produce can lose half it's vitamins in just a few days after picked. Even refrigerated (which can kill flavor for many things), you lose 50% after 1-2 weeks. Typically what you get in a grocery store is at least a week from field.
It's not just coming from one farm, we support over 20 organic farms, some of which are so small that without Farm Fresh as a Buyer, they would have very little chance of survival. It is as local as possible while still meeting the demands of our customers who want a wide variety available year round.
It's so easy to justify transporting ever-longer distances (Capay ships nationwide) by saying that's what consumers demand. Only it's consumer demand, driven by clever marketing, that created the huge disconnection between producer and consumer in the first place. People want strawberries in December and no longer remember why that shouldn't be possible.
But what I find basically offensive about what you say is the notion that small equals unsuccessful. A small farm has "little chance of survival"? Seriously?
Capay represents the kind of re-centralization of agriculture that killed the small farm, and you claim that these farms would die without it? Oh my! And can you answer how it is they can claim not to be a distributor when that's what they do?
This nation was founded on small farms. Back in the day you may have had 160 or 300 odd acres, but mainly because of livestock. Only a tiny fraction of that was in vegetable production.
In my perfect world there will be as many or more micro farms (both urban and rural) as there are grocery stores. You would never have to walk or bike very far to get fresh produce that is Zero days old. Companies like Capay wouldn't exist because there would be no need for distributors and middle-men.
Quite honestly, if you don't believe that that is possible... if you don't believe that a small farm of only a few acres can be successful, then you are kinda part of the problem. That attitude that you have to be big and centralized kills farms.
Khanom, you stinky festering hippay fukhole (which I say with great sarcasm)... "maybe I am misunderstanding your intent."
I actually have a little project on the back burner that should help with growing vegetables at higher elevations.... I'm calling it "passive solar shallow geothermal enhanced high elevation gardening." It is based (loosely) on the techniques used in Tiahuanaco near Lake Titicaca... hahaha
i can't buy all these kind of things, due to the prices, etc, in our area...
but i sure love to hear about... i just try to grow what i can...
i've heard lot about raw milk, being good, too, as to what ksolem said...
just 'depends' on if all is 'done right' right?
and where it comes from as to the dairy/farm?
how the greely? situaion (if i understood that right) works out good for you ksolem...
Let us know!