Earth Fare - Keeping That Food Close to the Ground

My husband has been meeting my father-in-law at the Corner Pocket (my father-in-law's daily routine) frequently. I started noticing, when I would drop by, that the old Circuit City was being transformed into an Earth Fare Supermarket. I have always been a bigger fan of food than electronics, so this development worked for me! I began tweeting them pictures of their evolving store to @earthfareTAL. By photographic standards, these first pictures were pretty primitive, but lo and behold someone was at Earthfare's Twitter handle and they started talking back to me!

Over the past couple of years, I have read some books and seen some documentaries that have impacted the way I think about food. When Tenley and I watched Super Size Me together, I was forced to be more aware of the business practices in the fast food industry, practices that jeopardize my and my children's health for the sake of profit. Ever since reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, no McDonald's chicken nugget has crossed these lips, and the inverse relationships between businesses' hunger for profit and concern for my and my family's well-being has become even more obvious. When Barbara Kingsolver resolved to forgo bananas for a year, as discussed in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle because she and her family had resolved to "deliberately eat food produced in the place where they lived" and bananas could  not be produced in their region, I wondered even more about how my food choices impacted the world around me, not to mention the concepts my children were absorbing about how food should fit into our lives.

I have never been quite as bad as the character in Sophia Kinsella's "Undomestic Goddess" who truly does not realize that strawberries originate somewhere other than the little uniform tubs at the grocery store. I did have the good fortune to have a grandparent who still farmed when I was a little girl, so I saw a bit of that life and I shelled a few hundred buckets of peas during my childhood (felt like hundreds, anyway!).  Where does Earthfare come in, you are probably asking.

They come into the mix because they sell foods that are:

"as close to the ground as it gets"

And because one of the eight components of their food philosophy is:

"NO inhumane treatment of the animals providing us with dairy, meat and eggs"

(I feel especially strongly about this one after Pollan book opened my eyes

to the food industry's treatment of cattle.)

And because I feel good about supporting a new entrant into Tallahassee's food scene whose mission is:

"To feed and inspire the healthy person inside us all." 

And because Earth Fare Tallahassee has demonstrated, including giving me my first sip of kombucha, that they are earnest to engage with our community. 

Earth Fare Tallahassee has provided me a $50 gift card to share with one of my readers! To enter for the giveaway, please do at least one of these:

1) Tell me in the comments something that has changed the way you look at food
2) Which of the eight components of EF's food philosophy is the most important to you as a    consumer? Tell me in the comments.
3) Comment on this: If you were participating in an Earth Fare "pantry makeover," which of these items are currently in your pantry that you would take to Earth Fare for a healthier replacement:

• peanut butter with hydrogenated oil
• soda with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
• cereal with HFCS
• salad dressing with HFCS or partially hydrogenated oils
• jelly with HFCS

Please leave your email address in the comment as well (use this format to avoid spammers: email at emailprovider dot com). I will use random.org to choose the winner.

The giveaway will end at midnight on Wednesday, January 5. I will contact the winner by email; if the winner does not respond within 72 hours, I will choose another.

So come on, let's talk healthy eating and see how we "FARE"!