food...

our family is going through a metamorphosis this year
one arena is food
http://www.freshthemovie.com/

we are rededicating ourselves, slowly to consuming much more fresh, local and organic food
slow food ( http://www.slowfood.com/about_us/eng/mission.lasso )
real food

we began by buying an 1/8 of a steer from a local grass-fed organic farmer
http://www.discoverfrederickmd.com/farmersmarket/html/detail.htm?cat=125&store=1102
and YUM

next we switched to buying our dairy from
http://www.southmountaincreamery.com/home.php
It is delivered to our door and placed in glass jars into our cooler. In addition to milk and the best chocolate milk we have ever tasted- can you say milkshake? we get our organic, cage free eggs, fresh cheese, yogurt, and occassionally apple cider from them. We also have bought some chicken from them and plan to do so again once we have run out of our supply.

We have switched from shopping mostly at the local chains: safeway, giant and macgruders to mostly shopping at MOMS (My Organic Market link ) which is not only promoting local organic farms but the whole experience is so much nicer-

And we will continue using the CSA once it is running again (around here there are no winter CSAs so we have to buy all of our produce instead of getting it from the co-op. We will be using Sandy Spring CSA this spring/summer
http://sandyspringcsa.com/

And finally, when dining out, we have turned to Eatwild.com to steer us in the right direction. We have found some amazing eateries including this one we went to on Sunday to celebrate our anniversary. http://ricciutis.com/
This place has not only an amazing mission of eco-friendlieness and socially responsible practices, it has amazing food!

So this
doesnt mean we are not still junk food junkies, nor that we have given up bacon (in fact we are finalizing a purchase of an organically raised 1/4 wild pig this month)and ice cream. But it means that we are considering the effect of what we buy on not only our bodies but on our environment. We have a lot more to learn about all of this and we hope as the kids get older we will be able to grow more and more of our own herbs, veggies etc but for now this is what we can do. It means eating out less, cooking a lot more, and finding new ways to eat the same vegetables as we are eating mostly what is in season (though i dont sacrifice on frozen fruits and we eat blueberries year-round).
We dont buy all of our produce organic when the CSA is closed for the season and we have to shop retail. When this is the case, we tend to lean on the 'dirty dozen' list to guide us on what absorbs the most pesticide.And there are some things we buy that are simply not 'certified organic' but really are. And sometimes we opt for local over organic because the farmers use integrated pest management and we think the environmental toll is high to have things shipped in.

we are excited about diving into this adventure. We hope we can keep it up as we learn. It is not cheap- that is for certain, but we make sacrifices elsewhere for the consideration that in the long run, it is more expensive not to.

We'd love to hear what you think we can do to do even more.