Economics of a seasonal meal

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Last weekend when I was at Clark Park Farmer’s Market, I could not resist buying a bag of pretty carrots from Urban Girls.  Yes, they were pretty - but they were also inexpensive: $2.00 per bag. A bunch of non-organic carrots at the local Acme is selling for $1.99 and a bag of organic baby carrots is $2.50.  The carrots from Urban Girls were not just organic - they came trimmed and in varying colors. 

Those carrots ended up being part of a One Local Summer challenge meal this week, along with lamb from Hillacres Pride and spinach from my Landisdale CSA share.  And since I knew that the carrots were an economical buy (or, at least, comparable), I was curious about how the rest of my meal stacked up price-wise.

The lamb from Hillacres was $10.00 for a pack of four lamb loin chops (about one pound).  The lamb is heritage breed, grassfed, no hormones or antibiotics.  I would expect to pay more, and I did - a whole $1 more.  Yes, I can get lamb loin chops from Acme for $8.99/lb.  Granted, they are most certainly not heritage breed, grassfed, or hormone- and antibiotic-free.

The spinach is a little harder to figure out - I divided my total share cost by the number of months it covers, and then divided that by four (you know, four weeks to a month on average), and then divided that by the number of items in my CSA share.  It came to about $2 for my spinach, which is organic.  I don’t know what the poundage was, but it was a good sized bag.  If I bought spinach at Acme, it’s $1.99/lb for regular, non-organic spinach or $3.99/5 oz for organic baby spinach.

I’ve heard people say that eating seasonally is elitist and expensive, but you could have fooled me - I’m eating organic and supporting local farmers for, what, maybe $1 or two more than if I had purchased commercially grown, non local food at the grocery store?  And when you take into consideration that I used herbs from my garden, I probably came out ahead of the game.

The spinach was just barely cooked, the lamb was marinaded in red wine, olive oil, oregano, and honey, and the carrots were cut into strips with a vegetable peeler, sauted in butter, and sprinkled with dill, salt and pepper.

Where it all came from:
lamb, Hillacres Pride - 56 miles
red wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
oregano, my garden - 0 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
spinach, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
dill, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt, pepper