Where I Buy Real Food

I'm lucky to live within walking distance of the excellent farmers' markets run by Greenmarket as well as good independent shops. If you're not so lucky, here's where to find farm shares for fresh produce; mail-order sources of grass-fed beef, raw milk cheese; regional American specialties, such as stone-ground corn meal and pink grapefruit; and the imported foods I can't live without, such as virgin coconut oil and good dark chocolate.  If you're pregnant, all these foods are good. For a short list of good prenatal supplements, see WHEN YOU'RE PREGNANT, under MOTHERS and BABIES at right.

Local Food
For national listings of local food:
   (A NY region project, now expanding to other regions.)

Farmers' Markets
The USDA keeps a reasonably comprehensive list of farmers' markets in the US. Most states also list markets on their agricultural pages.

Farm Shares
You pay in advance for a farm share, which is a weekly delivery of local food all season. Most farm shares include produce and flowers. Some include meat, dairy, poultry, and eggs. Also called Community Supported Agriculture, a term I don't care for. It's hard to say and to understand without explanation, and it sounds like a government program.

Citrus Fruit
Alas for me, citrus isn't local to NYC. It's one of the regional foods I try to buy from small, independent, and ecological producers. Here are two I like:
  • La Vigne Organics grows biodynamic and organic citrus in San Diego County, California, including unusual fruits such as minneolas, blood oranges, kumquats, and persimmons.
  • South Texas Organics grows organic grapefruit, oranges, and Meyer lemons.

Grass-Fed & Pastured Meat, Dairy, Poultry, Eggs & Game
Jo Robinson, author of Pasture Perfect, provides excellent information on the benefits of grass-fed meat, dairy, eggs, poultry, and game, and posts an extensive directory of foods.

Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan, NY, sells premium pastured pork, including fresh and cured cuts, belly, nitrite-free bacon, sausauge, and leaf lard, which has the best texture for baking, as well as rendered lard, ready to use.

The American Pastured Poultry Producers Association lists farmers who raise pastured poultry.

Niman Ranch is a network of several hundred independent farmers and ranchers who raise beef, lamb, and pork naturally for supermarkets, shops, and mail order. They also sell lardo, ham, sausage, and other cured meats without nitrites.

Buffalo Hunter Meats sells American bison, grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, free-range pork, rabbit, and other natural meats including jerky and bacon.

You will want to know how to cook all these foods; they have a different flavor than industrial meats and sometimes require different methods - often a lower temperature - because grass-fed beef, for example, is leaner. Others, like traditional pork, is often more moist than industrial pork, which has been bred lean. The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook (Shannon Hayes) will teach you how to cook grass-fed and pastured meats. She writes a nice introduction to grass-fed dairy and raw milk cheese, too, with recipes for a couple of choice dairy desserts. It's well worth owning, as is Shannon's new book, The Farmer and the Grill.

Real Milk, Cream, Cheese & Butter
The Campaign for Real Milk describes raw milk laws in each state and will lead you to buying clubs and cow shares for raw milk, butter, cream, yogurt, and other dairy foods.

Organic Pastures Dairy sells organic, grass-fed raw milk, cheese, butter, and other dairy products in California. Outside of California, they ship raw dairy foods frozen.

In New York City, Murray's Cheese sells and ships American and European small-production, raw milk, and grass-fed cheeses. Murray's stocks some 200 farmstead (made with the milk of the farm's herd) and artisanal cheeses (made with traditional methods).  Rob Kaufelt, the proprietor, has written a superlative guide to cheese, with descriptions of cheese types (e.g. bloomy, washed-rind, firm, blue) and truly useful descriptions of 300 of the world's best cheeses, including American and raw milk cheeses. The Murray's Cheese Handbook is well worth owning and makes a great gift.

Looking for a local dairy to buy raw milk?
Talk to the farmer. These are some ideas for best practice:
  • Cows are tested for TB and undulant fever (Bang's disease)
  • Cows eat mostly fresh grass or hay and no growth hormones
  • Milk goes in clean stainless steel and is immediately chilled to 40 F
  • Milk is tested regularly for microbiological activity and pathogens
  • Test results are available; problems are resolved
  • Barn and milk house are clean and orderly
  • The dairy farmer and family drink their raw milk daily

The farmer should be conscientious about cow and human health and informed about raw milk. Dairies may use milking machines or milk by hand into buckets. With care, both methods are perfectly safe. Cow health and careful handling of milk are what count. Remember: there are no absolute guarantees in food safety. That goes for the industrial food chain as well as the traditional food supply. You will have to make up your own mind.

Wild Fish & Seafood
All Alaskan salmon is wild. Because the state banned fish farming, wild salmon and other fish are abundant in Alaska's clean, icy waters. The best fish is 'frozen at sea' and shipped vacuum packed. I used to list several excellent purveyors of clean, wild fish, but in practice I always go back to Vital Choice for salmon and salmon roe, spot prawns, halibut, and sable fish . So now it stands alone - on my Shopping List, anyway.  For dolphin-safe, low-mercury tuna, there are many good fishing fleets and purveyors (such as American Tuna) on the site below.


Pure Fish Oil & Cod Liver Oil
The nanny was right. Cod liver oil is the most valuable fish oil supplement because it contains fat-soluble vitamins A and D along with abundant omega-3 fats. All cod liver oil is refined to some degree, which reduces vitamin content. Most manufactures add synthetic vitamins back. According to an article by David Wetzel in Wise Traditions (2005), these brands use only natural vitamin A and D. Some are flavored with mint, cinnamon, or citrus. (Nannies served cod liver oil in orange juice, another good method.) If you don't care for cod liver oil, try wild salmon oil capsules from Vital Choice.

Grains & Seeds: American Corn, Wheat, Oats, Rice & Flaxseed

Native Harvest sells real wild rice - not the kind grown in large irrigated paddies in California, but the wild stuff that grows naturally in the lakes of Northern Minnesota and is gathered by hand. Try Native harvest hominy and flint corn.

Anson Mills sells certified organic whole heirloom seed corn, wheat, and Carolina gold rice grown on American farms in Georgia, Virginia, the Carolinas, and elsewhere. Grits and biscuit flour are cold-milled to preserve flavor and nutrients. Carolina gold and white rice is buffered and milled with traditional colonial methods. Anson Mills recommends soaking grits with potash or baking soda, the traditional Native American method of making grains more nutritious and digestible.

Nuts
On my book tour in the summer of 2006, I went to a wonderful farmers' market in Seattle and found Holmquist Hazelnut Orchards, a family business in Washington's Nooksack River Valley. They grow Duchilly hazelnuts, which are more delicious than I've ever tasted. They're fresh, oval, and sweet. Try them plain or salted, raw or roasted. All are good.
Chocolate
Scharffen Berger makes chocolate in small batches with traditional European equipment and methods. The unsweetened baking chocolate and cacao nibs are superior. For every day, I like the 70%.

Chocosphere is an excellent mail order source of many international chocolates. Try the French Pralus, British Green & Black's, which is an excellent everyday chocolate (I often buy it on sale), and Grenada.

Vere Chocolate is a wonderful and different chocolate-maker. 'Vere' is Latin for 'real' and it's all dark chocolate (typically 75% cocoa) for grown-ups. The flavors are ingenious and subtle, the chocolate top quality, and the bars and bon bons never too sweet. One of my favorites is unsweetened coconut covered with dark chocolate. Simple! Vere chocolates are something of a treat for me, price-wise, but top of the line for ingredients and good taste. Made here in New York City on West 27th Street, Vere chocolates are sold on-line and in better shops all over the country.
Natural Sweetners
Buy local raw honey and unrefined maple syrup from farmers' markets, farm stands, and health food stores.

Deep Mountain Maple Syrup sells pure maple syrup and sugar made with traditional methods in West Glover, Vermont.

Tropical Traditions and the Grain and Salt Society sell whole organic sugar made from evaporated sugar cane.

Various Traditional Foods
Radiant Life sells traditional foods based on the work of Frances Pottenger and Weston Price, including grass-fed butter, unrefined salt, unfiltered olive oil, and cod liver oil.

Join the Weston A. Price Foundation to get its newsletter, Wise Traditions. The excellent classified section has ads for local grass-fed meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy, and other traditional foods such as coconut oil and salmon roe.

The Grain and Salt Society sells traditional foods including unrefined sea salt, traditional fats, wild salmon, organic dark chocolate, and fermented foods.

Traditional Fermented Asian Foods
Find foods such as miso, natto, and tempeh in health food stores, good grocery stores, and Asian markets. Clearspring is a good brand for organic and fermented Asian foods.

Coconut Oil
Tropical Traditions sells wet-milled, virgin coconut oil and a rich coconut cream from small organic farms in the Philippines. They sell cosmetics made from coconut, such as skin cream, and other whole foods such as unrefined sugar and olive oil.
www.tropicaltraditions.com or 866 311 2626

Unrefined Salt
Only unrefined sea salt contains the essential trace elements. Most sea salt is refined, but the better health food stores and grocers sell unrefined salt. An excellent brand is Celtic salt. Saltworks sells European and other unrefined sea salts. Real Salt sells unrefined salt from ancient Utah salt mines. Originally (in the Jurassic era) it was sea salt - though I understand from proper sea salt producers that some magnesium is lost with time, and they are not impressed,  but I have no independent information on that. The Grain and Salt Society sells many types of Celtic sea salt.

Breast Feeding & What To Do If You Can't
For encouragement, support, and information about breast feeding, contact La Leche League, a non-profit with local chapters all over the world.

If you cannot breast feed your baby, be wary of industrial formulas. Too often they contain soy milk and corn syrup and lack the omega-3 fats essential to the baby's brain. The Weston Price Foundation has a recipe for a nutritionally sound formula. Radiant Life sells most of the ingredients. Many mothers who cannot breast feed have used these formulas with great success.


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