What's for supper?

by Rebekah Bovenmyer

Until I lived on my own, I never thought about food beyond “What’s for supper?” I never even went grocery shopping with my parents.

It seems silly because I grew up in Iowa, a well-known farm state. But thoughts about where my food comes from and how it ends up in my grocery store didn't cross my mind until I started buying it for myself.

Now, where my food comes from (I really want to buy from Iowa farmers) and how it’s grown (I prefer organic) are important concerns for me. I also want to support local businesses and farmers who care about these things, too. And yet, I want more variety in fruit than, say, just apples.

That brings me here, to Wheatsfield grocery, a small co-op known for its organic and local food in downtown Ames, Iowa.

The bell clangs as I swing the door open.

Brightly colored organic fruits and vegetables—lettuce, oranges, tomatoes, apples, mushrooms—line the wall on my left. Shoppers, baskets on their arms, finger the produce for freshness.

I’m picking up a few things for some stir fry and a spinach salad tonight. It’s the middle of winter here, so there isn’t much Iowa produce. Most of the fresh produce available this time of year travels about 1,500 miles to reach Iowa.

Wheatsfield gets its produce from three main distributors—one in Colorado and two in Minneapolis/St. Paul—and three or four major local farmers, says Colette Ryder-Hall, the produce manager.

“In the summer, we have a lot more farmers where we might just buy strawberries or other specialty products,” she says.

Stir fry to me means mushrooms, so I look for them first. They have white button, crimini, portabella, and shitake. I don’t need anything fancy, so I focus on the white button and crimini.

The white button mushrooms are packaged, which means more landfill waste, but they’re from Wisconsin, a close neighbor to Iowa. The crimini mushrooms are unpackaged and from Pennsylvania—not bad. I decide on the white button because they’re cheaper and traveled fewer miles to get here.

“I don’t think people realize how much the weather, like that early freeze in California, and fuel prices really affect the produce prices,” she says. “I think organic produce is also more vulnerable because there are fewer farms and things are grown more in season.”

Sometimes it’s too expensive to even have in the store, like when cauliflower was going to be $4.99.

“People were saying they wanted cauliflower, but I knew no one was going to buy it for that much, so we had to wait until the prices came down. I want it to be affordable for everyone,” says Ryder-Hall.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t have as many options with the green and red peppers. They’re from Mexico—farther away than I’d like—but I take one of each anyway.

The onions don’t have a sign with a place of origin on them, so I don’t have to think about it too much, just pick one up.

I have some cashews, garlic, and rice at home, so I’m ready to move on to the salad.

I prefer spinach for salads, but I see some packaged butter crunch lettuce from Grinnell, Iowa. The spinach is also packaged, and it’s from California. The price is about the same.

The Iowa lettuce was grown in a greenhouse. I’m not sure whether transporting it across the country uses more or less energy than growing in a greenhouse and transporting it locally. I like spinach better, so I finally decide to go with that.

Now to the fun part: fruit! I like having fruit in my salad so I’m looking for berries, pears, oranges, and anything else that would be good with the raspberry vinaigrette I have at home.

I see mangoes from Peru, bananas and pineapple from Ecuador, oranges from Mexico, and blueberries from Chile. I see a special on pears from Washington, so I grab those first. I also take the blueberries and oranges.

I don’t know how to cut up pineapple and can live without the bananas, so I pass those up. I’m not sure if mangoes will work in my salad, but I take one for a healthful breakfast later in the week.

Ryder-Hall lets me try a California kumquat that looks like a tiny orange. She tells me to roll it in my hands until it gets oily and then pop the whole thing in my mouth. Ew. It tastes like orange peel to me, so I pass those up too.

My basket is full of food from all over the world but also some from not too far away. I’ve tried to make decisions based on how far the food has traveled, how it was grown, price, and, of course, what I like.

“It’s always a little sad at the end of summer when we can’t have as much local food,” Ryder-Hall says. “Because no matter how fast they can ship stuff to us, you know it wasn’t picked that morning.”

My mouth waters at the thought of fresh strawberries, green beans, and tomatoes.

I’m looking forward to the summer when more Iowa food is available and think I’ll try to go to more farmers markets. But today I’ll enjoy my stir fry and salad.