Some Thoughts on Food Value

Anyone should be able to see a difference in quality between a Yugo and a Mercedes. And it doesn’t take a concert musician to discern a difference in tonal quality between a Stradivarius violin and a pawn shop counterpart. But yet when it comes to food, most people think a carrot is a carrot is a carrot.

Aside from cosmetic quality, most consumers never question whether there could be biological quality differences between carrots. Just like assembly-line furniture cannot compare in quality to hand-crafted pieces, we firmly believe that mass-produced vegetables cannot compare in quality to “hand-crafted” produce.

Yes, you have to pay more for quality, but the old adage usually rings true that “you get what you pay for.” We simply cannot compete on price alone with large “factory farms” (organic or conventional), but we believe our “hand-crafted” produce will go head to head with any of them on quality.

Eliot Coleman, our gardening mentor, suggests that the average American spending $300 a month on sickness insurance would be wise to invest in health assurance by spending the same amount, an additional $10 per day, on high quality vegetables! One of our CSA customers shared with us that she hadn’t been sick all winter, and she couldn’t help but think that it had something to do with the produce!(?) Certainly our family can echo those thoughts; No one in our family has been to the doctor for sickness since 1998 – when we started farming!

We haven’t even mentioned the differences in taste, variety, freshness, or aesthetic appeal, etc., but hopefully you get the point: It’s time to stop shopping for cheap food and look for quality food instead!

The Farmers - Edwin and John Dysinger

Imagine Fresh…