I just joined a Vegetable Co-Op
 

However many people are participating put in $20 every two weeks. They pool the money and buy as much of a variety of fresh fruits an veggies as they can, from the local farmer's market (local is healthier and it supports your community). We meet up at a church and divide the bounty. It is purchased by weight (it doesn't always divide equally) so whatever is left over (after all possible equal portions are distributed) goes into the "bonus pile" from which you get the first pick if you are there helping to divide the stuff. Afterwards, whatever is left is donated by the church to a family in need. Everybody wins!

This week, my first time, I got a huge box of fresh delicious produce for only twenty bucks. Throw in a few dried goods and peripheral ingredients - and that could be my total grocery expense, bi-weekly. And, well, it helps that my wife is a vegetarian, and a wizard in the kitchen. This is one of the coolest things ever.

cool. wish there was something like that around here. i don;t go to church. is that where you heard about it?

Nah, and I don't go to church either (although I played drums in a church band for a while). I heard about this through a friend. I guess you could start one up if you can get enough people that are "into it".

That sounds a good system - something that gets people out of the fast/processed food world as well. I don't know of anything like that over here. Our village shop has been pushing organic food on a vaguely similar basis - by that I mean that you get to be able to buy a box of whatever organic vegetables and fruit are available that week - the box is rarely the same two weeks running.

A lot of the local shops over here are going the fresh/organic and specialist products route here as being one way to differentiate themselves against the supermarkets. They have to specialise to survive - same thing has happened with butchers shops - you don't get so much regular meat as they cannot compete with the chains, instead they go for marinading and blending (like with sausages that are a mix of meats and various herbs).

Here they have something called "Care and Share." Its for all types of food, but a selection of good fresh produce is included. Everyone chips in and you pre-order what you want - a box of meat, a box of fresh produce - whatever. You can save nearly half on your groceries that way

My grocery store sells a decent selection of organic stuff mixed in with the regular produce, usually at about twice the price. My stepdaughter (almost 8) is aware that I'm usually quite frugal, so she asked why I was buying the "expensive bananas" when those others were clearly "on sale."

I decided to try an experiment for her--well, sort of for me too, I knew what the results would be but not how dramatic they'd be. I bought some of both kinds. The organic bananas were solid yellow, with an extremely light freckling of brown spots. The non-organic bananas were still completely green.

Three days later, the non-organic bananas were mostly brown, and the insides were brown and inedible. The organic bananas lasted a week and a half, and even by the end when the peels were getting pretty darn brown, the insides were still mostly fresh.