Organic Grocery Haul

After Ada's morning nap, we dressed, packed our bags (and my market basket that I always, always forget to bring), and headed to the store!



In short: This morning's trip to the grocery store set us back $112. Added to our $18 CSA share, everything together equals $130 for the week. Excuse me while I place my eyeballs back into their sockets.



If you're catching up, we decided to toss aside our $60 grocery budget for a week and buy most everything organic to look at the costs, benefits, and the overall experience. (Read more about the how & why here.) I was expecting a higher price tag, but certainly not more than double our $60 weekly budget.

First, I'll show you what we got:



Our CSA gave us these ingredients, too:

And here's how much it all cost at Wegman's. (Some of you noted that stores like Whole Foods actually have good deals on organic items. We don't have a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc. anywhere near us, so it's just not an option.)



* I didn't find any organic bread that wasn't gluten-free and in the freezer section. We don't eat a GF diet, so I just found a loaf of bread that is made in upstate NY, but not organic.
* I don't think the cottage cheese is organic. The packing made it sort of seem that way, but on deeper inspection, I didn't see the certification.
* I didn't mean to purchase black soy beans. I didn't even know black soy beans exist. Ada was being fussy, and I grabbed what I thought were plain black beans! They are tasty, though.
* I usually puree/make all our baby food with the exception of oat cereal (because the baby cereal comes fortified with iron). However, our food processor is acting weird, so this week is an exception. I typically keep a few jars on hand, though.

I won't be dissecting everything from my experience today, but I do have some general observations:

• Organic dairy products are WICKED expensive compared to what we usually buy. Like at least double the price. I was quite shocked. And I guess if we weren't eating as much dairy, I could see buying all organic being more feasible.
• I was slightly disappointed with some produce options at the store because I feel like I was paying way more for way less. Especially with potatoes and apples. For this reason, I hope to always be a part of a CSA. We've been getting a fantastic share's worth of veggies from our farm, and they are definitely worth what we're paying for them.
• This comment might seem silly, but I had much more frequent and better interactions with my fellow customers. It could have just been a fluke -- but all these people engaged us in conversations. Comments like, "Oh, you like Pink Lady apples, too!" and "that cheese is my favorite!" In general, people in the organic sections -- or just store-wide today, July 9th -- seemed to be more enthused about their food.
• Overall, I felt guilty spending so much money on this food. I kept apologizing to Stephen for spending so much. Reminding him it's just an experiment. But I was also secretly thrilled at some of the stuff we were getting.
• Almost $6 for a single bag of chocolate chips??? I guess that would help with my sugar problem.

I have a ton more to write and more side-by-side comparison for you. But that will have to wait until later in the week. Ada decided not to nap at all this weekend, which we're not used to. Needless to say, I'm drained today. Catching up on stuff.

How do you think I did with prices? Are they comparable to what you spend for organic in your area? At present, I'm thinking we won't be buying all organic anytime soon. But I do see some swaps, like bananas, for example, that would be easy and fairly minimal in price.

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