Today Only - $25 Organic Fruit & Veggie Box for $12

Today only on Living Social, you can buy a $25 box of organic fruits and veggies from Fresh Box Organics for only $12! Fresh Box delivers fresh, organic produce in Brevard, Orange and some of Seminole County.

Here's the current contents of this week's $25 box of organic produce:

• 1 lb green beans (FL)
• 1 lb carrots (CA)
• 2 ears corn (FL)
• 1 head green leaf lettuce (FL)
• 1 tomato (FL)
• 1 lb sweet potatoes (NC)
• 2 fuji apples (WA)
• 1 blood orange (CA)
• 2 black plums (Argentina)
• 1 bunch (about 2.5lbs) bananas (Argentina)

If you decide to purchase the deal, please consider doing so through my referral link.

Sanford Farmers Market

I bought all this for $18!!!

To be honest, I gave up on local farmers markets many years ago, put off by the lack of . . . well . . . farmers. Getting up early on a weekend morning to buy produce that came off the same truck that's headed to Publix didn't seem worthwhile to me.

But lately, with a growing awareness of local and organic food, I've noticed small farm stands popping up at a few local markets. For a while, the Sunday market by my mom's house had a fabulous produce vendor with bunches of organic produce from their farm near Melbourne. Unfortunately, the market folded and I'm not sure where they're going now.

I never bothered to find a replacement, but these days, since my grocery list starts with 14 cucumbers (thanks to the CSD juicing), I decided to give farmers markets another shot. For the past few weekends, we've driven by the Sanford Farmers Market on our way to baseball, but today was the first chance we had to stop - and I found it to be well worth the visit.

The two produce vendors there both offered local produce. One had a wide variety that they buy from local farms in their area and resell, with everything being local to Florida except for the tomatoes. The other had an amazing variety of greens (kale, chard, turnips, several varieties of lettuce, spinach and way more that I just can't remember) from their farm in Samsula. The prices were amazing! I paid $2.50 for an enormous bunch of chard, $1.25 for a large head of red leaf lettuce and $1.00 for a big bunch of kale.

Here's what I bought for about $18:

- Chard
- Kale
- Lettuce (can't remember the kind)
- Red leaf lettuce
- Green beans
- Beets
- Sweet potatoes
- Red potatoes

The Sanford Farmers Market is open every Saturday from 9AM to 2PM in Magnolia Square in downtown Sanford. In addition to the regular farmers market, there is a health and wellness expo on the 2nd Saturday of each month and an arts and crafts fair on the last Saturday.

Although I have other markets on my list to check out, I can definitely see a return visit to Sanford in my future!

Expanded Organics at Colonial Town Park Publix

The Publix that I usually shop at, located in the Colonial Town Park plaza in Lake Mary, has a wonderful, newly-expanded organic produce section. I much prefer my produce without plastic wrap or packaging, so it was nice to see many new organic items looking more like they'd come from the farm than from a factory.

Among the new organic offerings are beets, radishes, chard, leeks, herbs, carrots (with tops!) and red leaf lettuce. And since we had a nice organic section with all the usual produce before, the selection is now really impressive.

 

 

 

  

Since these pictures were taken, they fruit/potato section has been moved into a large, four-sided display with even more produce.

I've always loved shopping at this store, especially since they are very coupon-friendly. Even though we have another Publix location closer to our house, this store's commitment to organics keeps me coming back.

M & M Vitamins in Lake Mary

This afternoon, as I was making my meal plan and grocery list for the upcoming week, Big Sprout started flipping through Appetite for Reduction and picked out a recipe he wanted to cook tonight. So, I scrapped our dinner plans and made sure we had all the ingredients he'd need. All went well until I remembered that I'd used the last of the nutritional yeast in my cashew cream sauce.

Our Publix has many great natural and organic products, but nutritional yeast isn't one of them. And since I didn't feel like driving 30 minutes to Whole Foods for one item, I thought that Big Sprout was out of luck for today . . . until I remembered a small, local health food store I found a few weeks ago.

Turns out, M & M Vitamins in Lake Mary saved the day. Not only did I get the nutritional yeast needed for the recipe, but I also picked up a few other items on my list. I was impressed by both the selection and the prices of their organic produce, and they have a small refrigerated case filled with many of the items - Daiya cheese, vegan feta, etc. - that would usually require a trip to Whole Foods. They also carry a large selection of supplements, and baked goods from DeLand Bakery.

I'll definitely be visiting more often now that I know what a nice selection they carry!