Every week when I go to the farmers’ market, I make a beeline for the “Two Guys From Woodbridge” table.  My buddy Perry (pictured here with his mom Lucia) has the freshest, healthiest greens I’ve tasted. Ever.

And you can imagine as the super-duper healthy person I am, I’ve even a lot of greens over the years.

Perry has an organic farm just outside of New Haven, Connecticut where he grows an amazing variety of beautiful, healthy greens in nutrient-rich soil. He picks them and immediately brings them to the market — mesclun, arugula, watercress, basil, Swiss chard, just to name a few – where they’re bursting with essential vitamins and minerals that will energize you for hours.

But here’s the thing – you know the bagged salad greens in the grocery store? I’d like you to chew on something: the nutritional value in those bagged greens is minimal.  Usually they’ve been picked weeks before they end up on your dinner table.  You can probably imagine that it takes a while for them to go from a farm to a processing plant, to being packaged for shipment, transported and then placed in your local produce department. All the while, they’re losing vital nutrients.

Needless to say, eating bagged greens is better than eating junk food, but I encourage you to think about where you might be able to find locally grown greens or the healthiest ones in the store that are available.

That may sound like an unreasonable request in this unstable economy where prices are high and we have less to spend.

But here’s my thinking: I make conscious choices on what I pay more for.  Some produce I always buy organic, like apples, and other things I don’t. And since greens are some of the healthiest things we can eat (did you know eating kale is a great way to prevent cancer), it’s worth the extra expense to get the freshest greens I can find.  It simply means I cut back in other ways that generally are less healthy anyway (like all the snacks my husband would love if I brought home – how about popping popcorn at home instead of eating Doritos – so much cheaper and healthier).  

But try this on for size. I bet you can make up for the cost of the healthier, more expensive items with a simple dose of meal planning and a shift in your mindset.  If we regularly walk down store aisles with no plan in mind, we’ll spend more. We’re often set in our ways about what we make and prepare, you know, creatures of habit. But you’ll be amazed how you can afford locally grown, super healthy greens, with some simple shifts in other, often less healthy things, we tend to buy.

What about you, what are you willing to pay more for and what could you give up that’s not so healthy anyway?

Filed under: Farmers' market, Greens, Healthy Meals, High Quality Food, Locally Grown Food, Organic Products, Vegetables