We’re about a third of the way through the ten reviews I’ll be posting during the remainder of July. Hold on, cuz the contests and discount codes coming your way are worth it…
I’ve talked before at length about our diet around here. Typically, Isobel’s (and by extension, my) diet is made up of about 50% produce, 20-40% soy products and meat, and the remaining 10-30% is alternative grains. This means that not only did we end up dropping extra fat stores within a couple of weeks of changing to it in February, but that our grocery bill nearly doubled.
Because of this, I don’t buy organic. Unless it’s cheaper than non-organics. How often does that happen, right?
I also historically have a wickedly horrible habit of not washing produce. I’ve never weathered any negative effects from it, and usually, it’s eaten on the go, so…it wasn’t much of a priority.
Yeah, I can hear you gagging from here, thanks.
When I was given the opportunity to review Spud’s organic delivery service, I jumped at the chance because a) it was free groceries!, b) I assumed they would have a wealth of gluten- and dairy- free food items that I may not be able to get in our local Whole Foods (or might get cheaper), and c) I remembered looking longingly at the people getting their groceries packed up for delivery at Safeway, back in the days of having to grocery shop each morning with a sturdy shoulder bag and a baby in a snugli, because I couldn’t carry more.
I found the gluten-free options were priced on par with my local store, and some even more expensive, and the little penny-pincher in me wouldn’t allow me to order them. So, I decided that I’d review two weekly deliveries of organic produce from Spud instead.
The first step was to set up my personal preferences online – basically rating on a scale of 1-5 how much I like, want every single kind of fruit or vegetable possible. Then, I scheduled two weekly deliveries of a Fresh Harvest Box, to be based on my preferences. Simple. They pick and choose what to stock the box with, in accordance with what I said I liked, hated or could leave or take.
I was told that my delivery would be on Tuesdays and that I could supply them with a key, be home, or collect my delivery from outside of my apartment building since they provide everything necessary for storage, including ice-packs, if needed. I chose to stay home and got to meet what might be the nicest delivery person I’ve ever met in my life. I wonder if an organic diet makes him extra polite?
The first week’s delivery, $20 of food, looked like this:
Celery, bananas, apples, tomatoes, mustard greens and blueberries. Yum. The blueberries were hoovered within a day; the bananas set on a window-sill to ripen and the rest was thrown into the fridge. What was eaten right away was delicious: the apples crispy, the blueberries a perfect mix of tart and sweet, and the tomatoes juicy. Unfortunately, the mustard greens and celery wilted right away, so I didn’t end up sampling those.
The second week, I received another $35 of fresh fruits and vegetables, again in a reusable tote without any extra packaging. This time, more celery, bananas, tomatoes and apples came with strawberries, cucumber, avocados, potatoes and a salad mix. Of course, this is right before I’m about to leave for four days, so the bulk of this produce will go with Isobel to the place she’ll be staying.
Overall, it was a positive experience ordering from Spud, but it’s not one that I’ll keep up for two main reasons:
- organic produce is more expensive – I usually get more than twice the amount of produce I received from Spud for the same price when I shop at a little Asian produce market near my home;
- I like the guaranteed of getting what I need, when I need it, and not worrying about storing or ripening anything.
I’ve gotten into the habit over the years since Isobel was born of buying staples as they went on sale, and stocking up on them then, and replenishing our produce supplies every two to four days. Meaning, we spend between $50 and 70 a week on fruits and veggies. I think, if I was ordering all of those from this organic delivery, the price would at least double, and I’d end up wasting a lot that wasn’t able to keep in the crisper for the week’s duration between deliveries.
For people who don’t have the issues I do – a lack of storage space, and a nearly psychopathic need to buy groceries as cheap as they can possibly be found – Spud might be the perfect fit.
One thing that I really found interesting was the invoice and newsletter that comes with each delivery. Not only do they provide a recipe of the week, healthy living news and reviews, contests, tips for storing and ripening produce and information about their reward program, but they also provide details about how far your food has travelled to get to their warehouse. I’m talking about a general message about the average of all of your food, as well as a per item breakdown. For instance, I know that my tomatoes travelled 54kms and my cucumber, 1646kms.
For those attempting to eat sustainably, and locally? This is GOLD. In fact, when ordering, I believe you can set up your preferences so that you only receive products from within a certain distance to your home. 100 Mile Diet, anyone?
Overall, I recommend the service to anyone who can afford to integrate organics into their diet, who craves the convenience of ordering online. Spud’s groceries aren’t limited to just produce, either – they offer a wealth of baked foods, prepared meals and snacks, in addition to beverages and special-diet items for those avoiding wheat, dairy, animal products or eating kosher.
Now the real question: how much do you spend on produce?
This post is all about guilt and envy. About passing a buck and picking up the reigns. About how nothing is ever good enough for me, for long.
When Isobel was a hair over a year, nearly a month, really, she started acting differently than she was before. In the context of her – the child who came out blue with a cord around her neck several times and a decreased heart rate, who started screaming and didn’t stop for nearly six months, who walked at nine months without taking more than 20 steps gripping a table-top, that said mama and dada and gagoo and no by eight, who rolled over about two months before learning to run and still hasn’t mastered getting a spoon safely to her mouth – it was like night and day.
She started hitting. Then kicking. A bit of biting got thrown in, but was quickly dropped when she was once aided in biting herself. I didn’t agree with biting her back, but I was fine with making her bite herself when I was in the path of gnashing.
The tantrums got severe, sometimes lasting up to two hours, so long that she didn’t remember why she was upset, if she ever knew to begin with. She wasn’t sleeping much – napping was sporadic and bedtime was a few hours’ battle. She was eating everything she could get her hands on and not growing or gaining weight, still nearly six months behind her peers in size.
I spent my days extolling the benefits of speaking, communicating with me. I talked to her all the time. I never raised my voice or got too frustrated in front of her. Not even when she started hurting herself. Not even when I got kicked in the face. Not even after 40 minutes of her screaming like the world was ending did I freak out at her. (For that, I’m actually proud, given my temper and how severe it was.)
I slowly taught her that she could be upset in her own space, safely. That she could be angry without violence. That going to bed wasn’t necessarily what she wanted to do, but it was still happening.
I watched her, like a hawk. I waited for some magical sign that would tell me what was going on, if there was a red flag that made her more something than other children, or if I was just being uncharacteristically wimpy. It all seemed so wrong.
Coupling that with the multiple sicknesses, infections, infections as a result of antibiotic reactions, and the fact that she’s never quite digested anything particularly well, including breast milk, I consulted Dr. Google multiple times and eventually bullied our way into an appointment with a pediatrician.
Who said that she’d come down with a nasty case of the terrible twos. At 13 months. I walked away from that with the message that I would just have to learn to cope. But I watched her moods get more severe and her food pickiness emerge.
Last summer, I’d over-read enough.
The research connecting dairy consumption and ear infections was just too swaying and after her (I think it was) 15th one, I cut her off of cow’s milk. Not one more infection befell her. In the fall, a switch was flipped in her body and she seemed unable to tolerate cheese any longer.
By her 29th month, again my instincts were calling out to me. Things were just as bad as they’d been with her, mood-wise, she’d dropped naps altogether and I had a few evenings where I’d put her to bed and then just cry. At the frustration and concern. Because I felt guilty, wanting to hit her back sometimes. Because I wanted to run away, drop her off to her dad and say, ‘you deal with this, I’m not big enough.’
I’d cry because I couldn’t do any of those things – hit her or ship her off – and because I just really needed her to be okay and kind to me. Or a vacation. And the vacation wasn’t coming any time soon. And she’d started pissing on the floor when she was really mad, in a completely obviously vindicative way. I mean, she would call me over, and then pee while smiling in an Omen-like manner.
Something had to give.
We went back to a pediatrician and we did an elimination diet. Wheat and dairy gave her a nearly immediate reaction. Those were cut out. For the most part, wheat gluten as a whole has been cut out and on the few occasions since February when she’s been exposed to either of those food groupings, she’s been sick, twisted and mental. It’s obvious to anyone who knows her, even a little. She’s just not her.
Plus, she ends up looking like she’s been in a bar fight.
Here’s the double-standard.
I wanted something to be wrong with her. I wanted her to be diagnosed with something concrete, so that I’d be able to take care of it. There’d be a solution, she’d be fixed, and we could be a happy, loving family 99.1% of the time. And that’s almost exactly what happened.
She went off the wheat and the freakishly long, violent tantrums ended. In fact, by now, tantrums are kind of a rarity. She lost all dairy and things firmed up in the digestive department and she stopped getting sick, well, almost ever, instead of every couple of weeks. Things couldn’t be more perfect.
Except.
Her eyes are still puffy and purple, rimmed in red, with an ocean-liner’s amount of baggage underneath them, and she’s still getting allergic-reactions in the form of rashes – which indicates that there’s still something in her environment or diet that is wrong for her.
Now I must rigorously examine the label of every food stuff we come into contact with, bake almost everything from scratch and she’s still losing weight sometimes – she’s nearly three, still wears a lot of 18-24 months’ sizes and on a very good day, weighs in barely over the 27 pound mark. I weighed that when I was one. Her diet is probably 60% produce, 25% protein sources and the remaining 15% is wheat-alternates. She’s not taking in enough calories, and god help her waistline on a day when there isn’t an abundance of energy-dense snacks for her.
Everything I buy at the grocery store is expensive. I can’t afford to eat organic, because we already spend over $500 a month on groceries – closer to $600 most months. I buy everything that she can and will eat on sale. I stock up. I cook from scratch. It’s so much money and time.
I wish there was nothing wrong. I miss the days when I could have on-sale generic cereal bars in the cupboard and hand her one whenever she asked for a snack. Her, at nine-months old, stuffing fists-full of lasagna into her face. When I didn’t have to buy a carton of soy milk every other day because I’m buying the largest container in one of the only two kinds she stomachs well (which are 210% the price of cow’s milk). I miss watching her peel string-cheese and having a menu plan open to anything. I miss not stressing out servers in restaurants, or having to prepare her her own meal to go to one.
I envy every parent I see, every day, who can go shopping with a stroller, hand over a bagel and have silence during the whole time, while they buy whatever the fuck they feel like. I hate that I saw safe cake mix on sale at the store two weeks ago and after checking it’s expiry date, bought all of them except two.
I hate that there’s still something clashing with her system and that I can’t just fix it like I imagined an answer would give me. I wonder if anything will ever really seem easy, or if it’s always going to be so damn hard and exhausting.
Some days, I truly hate myself for trying to find out what might’ve been wrong, when I could have sailed along on an inexpensive raft of laziness.
