CSA-Worth it?

[AngelaGT]

It is just dh and I as dd is on her own and ds is in college.  Is a CSA worth it for 2?  I shop weekly at a variety of stores for fresh and immediate need items and for stocking items (if on sale).  That would probably not change as I am picky on the quality of what we eat and prefer menu shopping.  Thanks.

 

[history-fan]

I have been in a few different csa’ s and they were different from each other. I would suggest to check out the ones in your area and see what their plan is. The ones I was in gave a lot of info on their website. During the season one would email a list of what was in this weeks box vs others would send weekly newsletter of what was in the box.

I liked trying new vegetables that aren’t available in the store. This year I’m making my garden larger so will skip the Csa. The ones by me are usually sold out in shares by this time of year.

 

 

 

 

 

[ScoutTN]

Depends on your farmer and how many veggies you eat. Ours would be because dh and I love and eat many veggies. Also our farmer offers a half share (a full box every other week) and various specialty boxes (low carb, no nightshades etc.

Our farmer also sells grass fed beef, pastured pork, and eggs.

[bibiche]

What kand said. It’s community supported agriculture. Do you value supporting local farmers enough to take a risk that you won’t receive a huge return on your investment in a bad year or that you might not always get exactly what you want? We value local farmers, so we support them. I tend to look at the CSA share more as a nice bonus and don’t absolutely rely on it to meet all my needs (although sometimes it does).

 If I were on a tight budget and had to choose between a CSA and just shopping myself, I would choose the latter. 

[TravelingChris]

I initially joined my CSA sometime between mid April and early May last year.  I joined because it is mainly a meat producing local farm that went all the way to Kentucky to get butchering done ( probably 250 miles each way), since places they usually used were closed due to Covid and stores were also having meat shortages, I decided to join. Happily, we are getting good meat, and ordering g extra, and getting all kinds of great vegetables, some tasty salad dressing they make, great ketchup, and on and on. 

This is one delivery service dh is not complaining about me ordering ( he didn't like doing the meal order systems since they all come in non environmentally friendly foam and over packaging that they have-  he had liked a number of their meals.  He has no problem of me buying prepackaged or put your package together meals from places like Publix and Fresh Market. - and I get them  sometimes too.

Oh and the CSA is pretty good for us a two people though we occasionally give extra eggs or some veggies, etc to one ofour kids.

[TravelingChris]

Just now, TravelingChris said:

I initially joined my CSA sometime between mid April and early May last year.  I joined because it is mainly a meat producing local farm that went all the way to Kentucky to get butchering done ( probably 250 miles each way), since places they usually used were closed due to Covid and stores were also having meat shortages, I decided to join. Happily, we are getting good meat, and ordering g extra, and getting all kinds of great vegetables, some tasty salad dressing they make, great ketchup, and on and on. 

This is one delivery service dh is not complaining about me ordering ( he didn't like doing the meal order systems since they all come in non environmentally friendly foam and over packaging that they have-  he had liked a number of their meals.  He has no problem of me buying prepackaged or put your package together meals from places like Publix and Fresh Market. - and I get them  sometimes too.

Oh and the CSA is pretty good for us a two people though we occasionally give extra eggs or some veggies, etc to one ofour kids.

Oh and like bibiche and kand said, we like supporting local farmers-  we also are in their composting program and support another local farm by buying strawberries from them and  fllower farm just opened up with loads of tulips and I hope to get some if them too ( they are also going to grow sunflowers later, etc).  I go to local farmers markets too.

[happi duck]

I love our csa! 

They really vary from farm to farm.  I don't do a lot of menu planning during the season because I cook with what arrives in the box.  We do it to support "our" farm and to get super local delicious veg!

[Ethel Mertz]

We've been in several CSAs during the last 25 years. We finally realized that we wasted too much of the CSA and were better off going to our local farmer at their farm stand or their stand at our local farmers' market on a weekly basis. That way we could still support our farmer.

[Katy]

In the best one we were in we got whole foods organic quality at Aldi prices, and in the worst the quality was better and the prices were cheaper at the regular supermarket, but we didn’t feel bad about it because at least we were supporting a local farm.

If you’re on a really tight budget a combination of frozen produce and a few fresh things from Aldi is probably the best value. If you’re okay with wasting a bit of food and money so your family has a wide variety of local produce, it’s most likely absolutely worth it. But you will get too much of something your family doesn’t like. Nothing like a bag full of arugula!

If you’re searching you can also check and see if there’s a Bountiful Baskets food coop location near you. That was a great value too. 

[catz]

I love our CSA.  And we definitely would spend more at the store.  I do think you learn to cook differently and be willing to be adventurous I regularly use formulas to make soups, quiche, stew, curries, etc using a variety of vegetables.  During CSA season, I usually would shop around what I knew was coming in the CSA box.  

Some CSA have half shares.  Our latest CSA allows you to select so many items off the weekly list so there is a little bit of choice involved which is nice.  

[klmama]

One health insurance group in our area subsidizes a CSA membership.  For those people, it's super cheap and definitely worth it.  For the rest of us?  It depends on what you actually get in your box.  You have to be willing to have an enormous amount of Swiss chard or Brussels sprouts or whatever that week's main item is.  It wasn't a good fit for us.  I'd rather buy just the items I want in the amounts I want, so there's no waste. I can shop at a farmer's market and still get the benefit of fresh-picked produce while supporting a local farmer. Win-win.  

[Farrar]

I'll just be blunt and say probably not. Different CSA's are different, but for most of them, you'll end up with a pretty small range of items but a good bit of them. Even in a small box, it's probably too much without enough variety for cooking for two. If you want to support your farmers, it would probably be better to do your shopping at the farmer's market instead.

Of course, YMMV because... as everyone keeps saying, different CSA's are different and everyone cooks and eats differently.

[Farrar]

Adding that for me, one of the considerations when we've tried CSA's has become food waste. I just... really dislike it. Given that I can easily spend the same amount as a CSA, get what I need, even though it's less stuff, from the market, and then not waste... that helps. Right now we get a weekly produce box that's from a local company that buys local, but from a variety of farmers and then mixes that with non-local so it's a more balanced box.

[SoCal_Bear]

It is for us. The CSA we joined has a bi-weekly option which is perfect for us. We are in California so we get produce year round. The variety, quanitity, quality and flavor has been amazing. 

[Carol in Cal.]

I loved the idea of it.  The reality was not SO great.

The good:  Lots of fresh stuff, every week.  I tried things I was unfamiliar with.  We ate healthier, at least sometimes.

The other good:  We also subscribed to some extras—a dozen free range chicken eggs every two weeks, and a beautiful loaf of hearth bread every week.  This was stuff I wanted but would not easily have found in stores so consistently.

The other good:  There were other extras that we could add to our orders from time to time, like a flat of seasonal fruit to make jam, or extra lettuce or whatever.

The bad:  The farmer had apple trees, and stored the apples too long and not very well, so for early spring we were stuck with mealy apples most weeks.

The other bad:  Little salad, which was weird because it is very easy to grow here in the winter.  Plus when I ordered a head of lettuce as an extra, sometimes it was huge and other times tiny, so it was impossible to know how much to order.

The last straw:  The only times I really really needed these quantities were exactly when they did not deliver—they shut down from mid-November to mid-January, and did not deliver during Easter week ever.  So I had to fight the crowds in the stores at the worst possible times, and buy tons more than normal, just when the CSA would have been most valuable.

[Carrie12345]

I always worried about the opposite problem - with a big family, would there be enough of single items for everyone.  But all of our CSAs are quite a drive, while we have farms nearby that just sell their items. So we shop for what we want there and fill in with grocery stores.

[MEmama]

It is for us. Our CSA is customisable—at the beginning of the season, customers rate their preference for items and they don’t give you what you don’t like. Also, every week you can swap items, so if I didn’t want the turnips, for example, I can swap them for more onions or carrots or whatever.

They offer the option to purchase additional items as well, so if I wanted extra spinach one week I could order an extra bag instead of going to the store or farm market. They also partner with other local farms for additional items for purchase like tofu, cheese, etc. The winter share offered a pantry item every week in the regular share— one week we got cornmeal, another week local oats, another popcorn. 

CSAs vary so much, it’s really worth checking out the options in your area.

[madteaparty]

When we lived in the city yes, but now I grow some of my own and farm stands abound so not really. Also I buy my milk a self serve farm store type trailer place and they have seasonal veggies there, as a last resort. 

[73349]

It depends on what's available to you. The traditional CSAs around us were not suitable for our family of 3 (and many of them required showing up at an out-of-our way location in the middle of each Wednesday to pick up the box). I'm not the kind of cook who will think of a clever way to use up four pounds of arugula and six pounds of beets.

However, we have one that's more like an online farmers' market: several farms participate and we can select our box contents online the weekend before, and it's delivered to our door. That works great for us. A mix of farms means more variety, and the ability to select means we're not stuck with food we don't like or too much of something. If you're not going to need a box for a certain week, you put delivery on hold; there are a couple of different box sizes and price points; if you need extra just temporarily, you can buy more credits. It's more expensive than the grocery chain down the street, but I think it's worthwhile, especially for stuff like eggs from pasture-raised hens, and strawberries grown locally instead of shipped 3,000 miles.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Carolina Wren

[skimomma]

As others have said, it really comes down to your household's cooking/eating "personality."  We have been members of CSAs for 20+ years now.  We usually have to buy a double share, even though there are just three of us.  I like the challenge of using items I am not familiar with and we waste almost nothing.  If I can't find a way to use something before it goes bad, I will preserve it in some way for future use.  Like, we once got 20# of carrots during a routine CSA winter share.  I don't have a root cellar and they would not all fit in the fridge.  I put 5# in the fridge to use normally and washed, chopped, and froze the other 15# to use for stock or other uses.  I ended up using a bunch of it to make a cream of carrot soup during a week we were all sick and I could not run to the store and the rest did end up in the stock I make and can every fall.  This happens all the time so right now, when produce is pretty ratty in the stores, I am relying on what I find in the freezer to round out produce.

I like to cook on the fly anyway, but I did make a habit of timing my weekly meal planning to grocery shopping to be the day after the CSA pick-up.  That way I could assess what we had, figure out what might need to be put up because I would not be using it, and fill in whatever other ingredients I need to make meals out of each item.  

Supporting local food sources is very important to my family, so we would do it even if it cost more as long as we have the bandwidth to deal with it.  I recognize that for some people, that is a very real and understandable barrier. 

[happi duck]

Having our csa box helped me branch out from always needing to use recipes.

I also just remembered that storing the veg was a learning curve for me.  My first week I just put it all in the fridge as is and it got limp.  Our first carrots with greens I didn't know that I needed to cut the tops off right away etc.

Now I'm good with storage but it is something to consider.

[Ethel Mertz]

2 hours ago, happi duck said:

Having our csa box helped me branch out from always needing to use recipes.

I also just remembered that storing the veg was a learning curve for me.  My first week I just put it all in the fridge as is and it got limp.  Our first carrots with greens I didn't know that I needed to cut the tops off right away etc.

Now I'm good with storage but it is something to consider.

Did you know you can use the green carrot tops to make pesto?

Carrot Top Pesto

There are other recipes for carrot top pesto if you google.