What Evansville, Indiana lacks in natural food stores it makes up for with farmers…

Back in Flagstaff, Arizona we loved our natural food store but when we joined the local CSA we weren’t that impressed with the variety of the shares we got. The things we got were good, it was just the exact same thing each week for months. (Wondering what a CSA is? Read more here.) Our food came from kind of far even with the CSA and we really had a heck of a time finding affordable organic/ free range meat options in Arizona.

In Northern Arizona the only real option was to buy a share of an animal from a farmer (or the whole thing). You pay the farmer upfront, they feed and raise the animal, when times comes for slaughter you go pay the meat processor, pick up your meat and haul it back to your house to store and consume.

Here in Evansville we found a place that does a meat CSA (Stonewall Farms) and we totally signed up! We spotted their booth at a local community event and purchased a few steaks from them to enjoy. They were amazing steaks and we loved the idea of supporting them.

“All our animals have free range all day, every day and they receive no pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, animal by-products, or herbicides…not on the pasture and not in their feed. We believe that because they are giving their lives for us, we owe it to them to see they lead happy, healthy, stress-free lives.”

We are getting 20lbs of meat per month in a variety of cuts, chicken, pork and beef. We are also getting farm fresh eggs each month and a turkey in November. It averages out to about $5.80 per pound over the course of the entire year which is not a bad price for grass fed, hormone free meat. Especially considering the wide range of variety in the cuts and types of meat you get.

What is bad is that we just paid $10 a gallon for Organic Valley milk at the River City Food Co-op. It is the only place in town that carries this milk and after polling my facebook friends I now know we paid way more than they do. We want organic, hormone free cows milk. How is that so impossible to find? Strongly considering going the raw underground route because paying $20 for two gallons of milk is CRAZY!!

Anyway, it makes me happy that we are leaps and bounds closer to being more eco-friendly and healthy in our food choices now that we’ve found a good CSA meat source. Combined with our vegetable garden we’ve almost eliminated all the bad crap from our diet. Still looking for a viable milk solution and perhaps a better deodorant option because the deodorant we’ve been trying out leaves me smelling kind of off. Not total stinky armpit like, just not shower fresh. Be glad you are reading this and can’t smell me right now. Ha!