Where we Source Real Organic Food | TIPS FOR BUYING LOCAL FOOD

We love finding a bulk of our food from local sources. Today I’m sharing my tips for buying local food, so you can do the same.

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It is the year 2019. Grocery stores are stocked with an ample supply of meats, cheeses, grains, veggies, fruits and more packaged food than any human should ever consume. Chances are you can probably find one within just a few miles. If you’re really lucky, you may even have the option for grocery delivery.

grass fed pork in the freezer

Believe it or not, we are able to get Instacart right to our door. Although we did find our little dream homestead on seven acres, with an old barn and silo, we are surprisingly close to a fairly decent sized town. We aren’t talking a city, but one that has an Aldi. With just a 10 mile drive, we are within the range for drivers to bring groceries right to our door.

By just logging in to an app, we can have all of our sustenance for the week in less than 10 minutes of effort.

With all this convenient literally at my fingertips, why on earth do I drive to several local farms to obtain all the meat, milk, eggs and some veggies and herbs for our family?

Why buy local food

Local food is produced in a healthier way

These days we are so far removed from the source of our food. When we see it all lined up on well lit grocery store shelves, we tend to forget all the steps between the origin of the food and the point of purchase. Because of the many hands involved, it is impossible to know if the food is produced to your standards.

Meat is raised on a massive scale, so there is no way to know if animals were kept in overcrowded conditions, fed organic diets or even ever saw the light of day. When you connect with the sourse of your food, you can ensure that you are actually getting what you paid for.

Was the animal stuffed full of GMO soy or treated with antibiotics and hormones? In our family we take gut health seriously. Nearly every health problem can be traced back to an unhealthy gut microbiome. Because of this, we avoid the use of antibiotics. The last thing we want to do is consume them in our meat. Same goes for GMOs, or genetically modified organisms.

When we are getting food from a local farm, I can see exactly what we are getting and ask the farmer all of my questions. When I try to ask those kind of questions at Walmart, they look at me like I have two heads.

Local food is better for the environment

Getting food straight from the source reduces the amount of miles driven to obtain the foods. This means that huge trucks aren’t driving all over the US creating pollution.

Local food encourages local farmers to stay in business

When I support local farmers, I am encouraging the market for more people to grow their own food. Without people like me buying food from local farms, these businesses simply don’t exist anymore.

Everyone tells me that we can’t feed the world without producing food on a huge scale, but I wonder what would happen if we all bought from local farmers. Wouldn’t good old supply and demand make it profitable for more people to raise and sell food? Seems to me like we need more farmers if we want to see this change, and the only way to do that is to support them. They need money and loyal customers to operate.

I know that if every person in my area wanted local organic food right now, there wouldn’t be enough farmers. The price would jump significantly. More people would see the demand, and more people would become farmers. Capitalism at work.

Local food is just more sustainable.

Tips for buying local meat

How do you find local grass fed beef?

Alright, let’s get into the nitty gritty. Where do I even find local organic meat?

There are several great resources to search for meat in your local area. These websites are a great place to start:

Local Harvest
Eat Wild
American Grassfed

You can also join your local Weston A Price chapter on Facebook, and ask people on there where they get their meat. I am in the Weston Price St. Louis Chapter on FB, and people are always posting their offerings for sale all over the area.

We personally found a guy several years ago for our grass fed beef. He lives a few hours away, but meets in locations all over the area. My sister and I split a half about once per year. We only have to drive half an hour to meet up with the farmer, and fill the freezer.

A lot of times these farmers do not actually have the USDA organic certification, because it is way too expensive for local farmers to jump through all the government hoops. Most of the time, the meat they are offering is even better than the organic certified meat from the grocery store. You just need to know the right questions to ask the farmer.

In the case of beef, here is the important one:

Are the calves grain finished or grass finished?

Farmers often market their meat as “grass fed”, but they don’t tell you that they still fatten them up at the end of their lives with grain. All meat is “grass fed” to an extent, but what you’re looking for is “grass fed and grass finished”.

If the only thing you can find is grain finished, make sure to find out if they are fed organic grain. If the grain isn’t organic, you can pretty much guarantee they are being fed GMO grains.

Grass finished meat will be a lot leaner than you’re used to from the grocery store, but still just as delicious, when prepared properly. The most delicious cut of all is the filet mignon. Sometimes I wish the whole thing could just be that! We also really love the roasts, sirloins, and of course, the ground beef.

Here are some of my favorite grass fed and grass finished beef recipes from the blog:

How to Cook a Roast in the Instant Pot

Healthy One Pot Meals- Sourdough Skillet

Grass fed beef, spinach and quinoa skillet

How do you source local organic Chicken and eggs?

We get our pastured chicken from Fed from the Farm. They are a located a few hours away, but drive to a meet up location in the town ten minutes from our home. They also offer raw milk, eggs, beef and pork.

If you are able to find a farm like this one, you can knock out a lot of your sources in one fell swoop, but you pay a bit more for the convenience.

Our chickens aren’t laying just yet, so we also get our eggs from this family. They offer a bulk discount, so we order 15 dozen eggs every other week.

If you are in Missouri, check out:
Fed from the Farm (delivers raw milk and meat all over eastern MO) Use this link to get $10 off your first order.

How to Make a Perfect Roasted Chicken

How do you source local Pork?

I found the farm we are currently getting our bacon, sausage, chops and ribs from a friend. The key is to find like minded people in your area, and ask them where they are getting their stuff. If you don’t have any success there, try these websites again:

Local Harvest
Eat Wild
American Grassfed

With the farm we are currently getting pork from, you order the half a hog from the farm. Then you call the butcher and specify how you want everything done.

Expect questions like: “Do you want the ham and bacon cured or uncured?” “How much of it do you want made into sausage?” “How many pounds per package do you want for your pork chops?”

We pay the farmer for the pig itself, and the butcher for the processing.

I go more into depth about all of this, and the prices we pay, in the video at the end of this post.

Does pastured meat cost more than store bought ?

The cost of local meat mostly depends on the market in your area. For us, buying from a local farm is cheaper than buying organic from a grocery store. It is not cheaper, however, than buying conventional meat from the store.

Buying in bulk is almost always cheaper than buying individual cuts from a farmer at the farmer’s market. This is why we purchase “a half” or “a quarter” when buying meat from a farm. We also purchase 18 chickens at a time, because that is where they offer the discount.

Where to buy raw milk from a local farm

I talked a lot about this in my post: Why We Drink raw Milk

For us, we find local dairy farms to purchase milk through networking with friends and asking around in our local chapter Weston Price Facebook group.

Another great place to look is the Real Milk Finder. If you aren’t able to find anyone in your area who is on the farm listings, don’t get discouraged. A lot of times there will be families in your area who only want to take on one or two customers, so ask around!

When we first started buying raw milk, we were purchasing it from two local dairies and then we moved into our current farmhouse and are now purchasing milk from a family who owns a dairy cow. Even one dairy cow produces four gallons of milk a day.

When you can’t find local sources for all of your food

Grains, Beans and Produce

Bananas, avocados and out of season produce

I live in the midwest. We don’t have groves of orange trees, avocado farms or a rainforest from which to purchase locally grown bananas. I’m glad that we still have access to these delicious things, though. To fill in all the gaps for things that we can’t buy around our local area, I just order Instacart groceries from Aldi. I like to buy as much as I can, and not worry about the rest!

Thank God for modern grocery stores.

Thrive Market

Another great source for organic food is Thrive Market. The prices are better on certain things, than anything I can find locally. They even beat out Amazon on a select list of groceries.

Items I get from Thrive Market-

Coconut chips
Shredded coconut
Natural Calm Magnesium
Gelatin
Prenatal Vitamins
Coconut Aminos
Redmond Sea Salt
Coconut milk

Get 25% off your first order with my link. (You can get a 30 day free trial with this link.

Where do you get raw cheese?

We used to be able to get raw cheese from a farm only 15 miles away from our home. They offered the most delicious raw jalapeno cheese, Italian herb and a garlic version. Oh, those were the days. Now that we no longer have access to raw cheese from a local dairy, I source mine from Azure Standard. The 5-lb raw cheddar block is the best price I have found.

Azure Standard I get the” Cheddar Cheese, Raw, White, Random Weight from Azure Market”