Last fall I lost weight with a strict diet that required eating four cups of vegetables a day. I realized that to stay healthy and feel good, I needed to continue to eat a variety of vegetables. My vegetable expertise ended at making a fresh green salad and heating up frozen or canned peas, corn, and beans. With a family of seven, I also didn’t know how I could afford to buy fresh produce for all of us.

        Then a friend told me about a food co-op and we decided to try it together. Since then I’ve become a volunteer for Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op, learned how to cook and eat vegetables I’d never heard of before, and increased my family’s consumption and enjoyment of a variety of vegetables and fruits. In addition to joining a co-op, joining a Community Supported Agriculture group (CSA) and growing your own fruits and vegetables can increase your health and sense of community.

Bountiful Baskets 

        The Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op offers participants a chance to experience a variety of fruits and vegetables and strengthen their communities through volunteering. My husband thinks I’m crazy to get up at six o’clock on a Saturday morning to unload produce from a truck and sort yummy fruits and vegetables into baskets, but I love working with the other volunteers and helping other people be excited about vegetables.

        The motto of Bountiful Baskets is Together We Are Changing the World One Dinner Table at a Time. Sally Stevens and Tanya Jolly started doing that in 2006 with a few families in Arizona dropping off money and a basket on their front porches and then picking up the produce at two parks near their houses. Bountiful Baskets has now expanded to twelve states with hundreds of sites. In and around the Treasure Valley, there are currently twenty sites.

        To participate in Bountiful Baskets, log onto the Bountiful Baskets website Monday and Tuesday and pay $15 for a basket. Sally and Tanya then combine all the contributed money and purchase produce, which is delivered by truck on Saturday morning. Participants pick up their baskets on Saturday morning at their chosen site.

        The sites are run by volunteer site coordinators who train at other sites. I am a back-up volunteer site coordinator at the Siena K–8 school in Meridian. The co-op is run entirely by volunteers, and participants are encouraged to help at least once every two months. Volunteers show up an hour before pick-up time to unload the truck and distribute the produce among the baskets. At our site, we set up rows of laundry baskets on the field during good weather and under the entrance to the school if it’s wet and cold. Vegetables are distributed in one basket and fruits in another. Our site does about 96 baskets. Special offerings or add-ons are also available. These can be bread, case products such as boxes of oranges or flats of strawberries, specialty packs such as the tropical pack with pineapple and vanilla beans, or desserts.

        Participants must bring their own baskets or boxes to carry their produce home. Produce not picked up in a 20-minute pick-up window is donated to a local fire station.

        The baskets contain a variety of fruits and vegetables for a great price. One Saturday I weighed my Bountiful Baskets contents and priced the same produce at the bag-your-own grocery store where I usually shop. The cost of the produce at the store was double the amount I contributed.

        Those who do Bountiful Baskets love the fresh produce and learning how to prepare new vegetables. I’ve roasted Jerusalem artichokes, added Swiss chard to my cream cheese chicken, and blended mangoes in a fruit smoothie. Jennifer Ellis plans her meals around the vegetables she receives instead of buying produce to go with certain meals. Michelle Weymouth loves that she spends less money on produce and has it around the house all the time. Dana Peterson enjoys the surprise of what will be in the basket—she says it’s like Christmas every week. My own children can’t wait to see what I bring home on Saturday morning. We are all eating more fruits and vegetables and enjoying them.

        I also love the sense of community from volunteering with other people who are striving to eat healthy. We exchange tips on preparing the produce as we sort it, and I am so pleased with the good attitudes of all the volunteers. When posting on Facebook and asking what others liked about Bountiful Baskets, I discovered that my sister-in-law in Utah and my cousin in Rigby, Idaho also participate.

Community Supported Agriculture

        To support local farming in the Treasure Valley and receive a season of fresh produce, join a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) group. Search online under “CSA Boise” for the local groups you can subscribe to; there is a good selection. One such option is Earthly Delights Farm, which supplies 18 weeks of produce, along with weekly newsletters, for a single annual fee. Produce ranges from herbs at the beginning of the season to tomatoes and squash at the end. As with Bountiful Baskets, members don’t get to choose what’s in their share, but it’s a great surprise. Earthly Delights Farms is run by Casey O’Leary and Lori Bevan. Along with the CSA, they also offer internships and workshops, and run a sustainable landscaping company. Several of the CSAs also have a presence at the many farmers markets throughout the Treasure Valley.

Grow a Garden

        Every spring our family plants a garden. I am not a great gardener, but we do harvest tomatoes, peas, lettuce, cucumbers, and many pumpkins. My children will eat hundreds of peas they have grown and picked themselves. They even love to eat spinach and are experts on plucking the leaves from the top so the plants will continue to produce for the entire summer. We also have two apple trees in our back yard and though we haven’t gone to the work of learning to spray, we cut out the worm holes and enjoy apples all fall and canned apple pie filling in the winter. My children work hard to pick up all the rotten apples that fall onto the grass and toss them into the garden for compost. We have a small raspberry patch, from which I’ve only eaten about one raspberry, because my two boys pick them and eat them before anyone else has a chance. My brother has observed that during the summer and fall, my boys are like foragers, ranging from the strawberry patch to the raspberries to the carrots and lettuce in the garden. And when our garden produces more tomatoes or beans or pumpkins than we can use, we share with our neighbors.

        Eat healthy and enjoy a variety of fruits and vegetables while interacting with the community by participating in Bountiful Baskets Co-op, joining a CSA, or planting a garden. Your body and your mind will be grateful.

Resources

Bountiful Baskets - www.bountifulbaskets.org

Earthly Delights Farm - www.earthlydelightsfarm.com

Nutritional Guidelines - www.choosemyplate.gov (New guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2011)

Docena Holm is a stay-at-home mom and writer who knows that although a Jerusalem artichoke looks like ginger, it tastes much different.