The cost of fruits and vegetables seems to increase with each warning that we in America don’t eat enough of them. Going to the grocery store can be a headache when you start adding up the prices and have to pick barely enough to make it through a week – do you choose the healthy fruits and vegetables you know your family should eat more of, or foods that keep you full longer?
One alternative to giving up on the fresh foods is to participate in a co-op; you join together with lots of other people (being poor is not a requirement, no one asks anything about your finances), pool your money, and buy in bulk yourselves. There’s a co-op called Bountiful Baskets that operates in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, and Washington to get really good deals – $15 gets you a laundry basket full of a variety of fruits and vegetables that would otherwise cost $40-50 at the very least. They operate in my area every two weeks, you pay online by Wednesday and go pick up the food on Saturday. Sign up early, by the deadline time, they may be full already. It’s really $16.50 due to a $1.50 processing fee (there’s also an additional $3 first time fee to take into account).
Here is a list of what was offered Saturday, January 2nd:
$16.50 bought
Fruit
11 pears
9 bananas
8 large oranges
1 pineapple
1 small watermelon
11 apples
and Vegetables
1 head of Romaine lettuce
1 package celery
17 radishes
1 bag (paper lunch bag) of brussel sprouts
4 small yellow squash
6 large yellow onions
4 tomatoes
The offerings vary each time. For example, corn on the cob was available one week but not onions, this week there were onions, no corn. There are also extra deals you can get on specialty breads; tropical fruit baskets with pineapples, mangoes, and coconuts; other fruits for canning; specialty packs of Mexican food; and even meat (beef and bison) in certain areas.
Good Deed Opportunity
Not only was there plenty of food for the money, Bountiful Baskets offers a wonderful opportunity to do community service volunteering. It’s strictly volunteer-run so they welcome help from the participants. It doesn’t take long to help out and it’s a useful service to those without money to buy as much as their family needs at a regular grocery store. They’re also hoping to keep expanding into other areas – if you’re interested in participating or starting your own location, you can contact them from their website:
http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/
A co-op serving Arizona, Idaho, Utah, and Washington
The volunteers show up an hour before the pickup time to prepare things, they divide the food into small laundry baskets (each pickup is two of the baskets full, just remember to bring large basket of your own or grocery bags or boxes!), volunteers check off names from the list of those who’ve paid, they keep track of the extra orders for bread packs, extra fruit, etc. Afterward, they clean the site and remove leftover boxes.
The site will show you when and where you can pick up your food. It’s every other week – on the off time the section showing the time and location says closed for this week so don’t let that worry you. You can explore the rest of the site before you decide. Once you’ve paid, you can’t get a refund, the money will have been used to get the bulk rate already – be sure you can go at the right time to pick up the goods! They also tell you to be careful and not to submit your order twice. There will be an email to confirm your order, once you’ve got that, you’re good to go!
Fruits and vegetables are really not just a luxury, they are a major part of a healthy diet; avocados have been shown to prevent or help prostate cancer for example. Be prepared to look up any unfamiliar foods to discover how to prepare them, that may not happen often but at times it probably will. And how much easier can it get than having baskets of food just waiting for you to pick up?