Category — Money Saving Tips

After living in the East Bay for several months, I started to discover some nice places to shop for organic produce. Here are some spots I visited:

Berkeley Bowl/Berkeley Bowl West

• Pros: This place is like a produce mecca for anyone obsessed with fresh fruits and vegetables. Tons of varieties. Organic produce prices on many core items (e.g. apples, broccoli, onions) are very good. Berkeley Bowl West has its own separate organic section which is nice, but the original Berkeley Bowl seems to have more varieties than the Berkeley Bowl West. Parking is easier in Berkeley Bowl West.
• Cons: Mad shoppers hitting their carts throughout aisles, grabbing the best produce possible. Be prepared to have a heart attack while parking your car or pushing your shopping cart.

Monterey Market

• Pros: This place has really amazing produce. I think the quality is even better than Berkeley Bowl. It doesn’t offer as much variety as Berkeley Bowl does, but it still is pretty amazing given its size. The prices are really good, and produce is SUPER fresh.
• Cons: Again, like Berkeley Bowl, prepare for a mad stampede of food – obsessed shoppers with their carts everywhere. It is not a fancy store; don’t expect it to look like Whole Foods (this is not necessarily a con, but I know people who are turned off by Rainbow Grocery for this reason).

Berkeley Farmer’s Market

• Pros: (I’ve been to both the Thu and Sat markets) This place has superb quality, all organic and lots of turnover. Downtown on Saturdays, there’s some hot food which is convenient for a quick bite or lunch. On Thursdays on Shattuck and Rose, there is less variety of hot food but I love the organic hot food vendor, Today’s Special! It is really an excellent find.
• Cons: It does get a little crowded, and sometimes by the end of the day, the food quality gets low due to heat or just staying out so long. Otherwise it’s a good market.

Temescal Farmer’s Market

• Pros: This is an amazing find in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood which is becoming really up and coming. The quality of these vendors are A+ with people like Cowgirl Creamery and Prather Ranch (which are truly hard to find as market vendors).
• Cons: Wow, this place is expensive. After being used to Monterey Market and Berkeley Bowl prices, it’s hard to recalibrate what I expect to see in food prices. $8 for 3 sausages that aren’t even organic or nitrate free? No thanks. But to be fair, every produce item we bought that day (kale, carrots, broccoli, bell pepper and spinach) was really probably some of the most amazing produce we have tasted in a long time.

There is probably a lot more fabulous organic produce out there – but these are some great places to check out if you are in the area!

In this economy, who wants to spend full price? I had a reader comment on my blog asking for green discounts. Here’s one – for the green shopper, there’s a great service called blissmo. It’s like Groupon meets green with a social mission. These guys are the real deal, looking for certified products and services, starting in San Francisco with already thousands of subscribers – not bad, considering they just launched a month ago.

This week check out a deal from Looptworks – a cool clothing company that actually REUSES existing materials into hip and trendy hoodies, shirts and more. Get 40% off on Looptworks clothes. Hurry – it expires end of this week!

1. Shop at your local farmer’s market. If you wait towards the end of the market, many farmers are willing to sell at lower rates to get rid of inventory.
2. Join a local CSA in your area for a weekly produce box, fresh from a local farm. Some of these items are much cheaper than at Whole Foods. Some examples of CSAs are FarmFreshToYou and others found on Om Organics’ website in the San Francisco Bay Area.
3. Find private label organic food items. At Safeway, they now sell their own organic food line O Organics. At Whole Foods, they have their 365 everyday value items. These items tend to have reasonable food prices.
4. Shop at your local co-op. My personal favorite is Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. It is like the Costco of Whole Foods. Not necessarily the prettiest place to shop, but full of choices, bulk and great prices.
5. Buy bulk items. Don’t bother buying core items like rice and oatmeal from small boxes. At places like Whole Foods, and co-ops like Rainbow Grocery, it is easy to find wide varieties of healthy grains, nuts, dried fruits and other goodies in the bulk aisle. One of my favorite items is the almond butter, fresh and bulk.
6. My personal favorite store for value-Trader Joe’s. Sure their produce quality is not the best, but many of their packaged items are great prices.
7. Use food delivery services like Planet Organics in the San Francisco Bay Area. They deliver straight to your home once a week, and you can choose any items you want, unlike a CSA. I’ve been using them for a month, and really enjoy the quality of their produce.
8. Grow your own vegetables and fruits in your patio or yard. Tomatoes are especially a good thing to grow as they tend to be more expensive than other produce.
9. Find coupons for organic and local food. Whole Foods has a coupon flyer in their stores that has many discounts on natural food items. There are local guides such as Green Zebra and EcoMetro Guide that have dozens of discounts for organic and local items.
10. Avoid chains and try shopping at local markets. My favorite local market is Sigona’s in Redwood City for produce. Their produce prices are some of the best in the area given the quality of their organic and local sourcing. Another example is the Milk Pail in Mountain View.

For one of my social events, I hosted a 50 person casual brunch to celebrate an occasion. I didn’t want to spend too much money, but I still wanted high quality food. I found a great recommendation through the Berkeley Parent’s Network online, called Greenleaf Platters. They provide green, low cost, organic, local foods already made and delivered to your door. For my event, I ordered quiches, salads, fruits, organic lemondade and coffee.

The food was so great that my friends picked up their business card. Greenleaf then comes back to the venue after you’re done to pick up the glass plates that they lend for the event. Most of their food was organic and locally sourced. I highly recommend Greenleaf Platters for an event. Their manager Hugh Groman even called me the week before to double check my order even though I had already purchased it online just to make sure it was what I wanted.

 I spent last Saturday shopping for food. Started at the Redwood City Farmer’s Market, then Sigona’s, a local market in Redwood City and then Trader Joe’s. I later went to Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco.

The verdict? Sigona’s is one of the best markets on the Peninsula if you are looking for great value on local, organic produce. For less than $60, we got over 15 vegetables and fruits, mostly organic, mostly local, plus organic Rocky chicken (much better quality than the Trader Joe’s organic chicken) plus Strauss nonfat milk. Organic bell peppers at less than $2/lb. This was way cheaper than even conventional prices at the Redwood City farmer’s market. No crowds in the store. Friendly staff. I think the prices at Sigona’s Redwood City location is way cheaper than the one at Stanford Shopping Center. Checkout Sigona’s sometime if you’re looking for a good market on the Penisula.

The Consumer Reports started a green guide to products a couple years ago. I like them because they are a nonprofit with unbiased information and careful studies. Some of the products they review include:

• Electronic products like air conditioners, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners
• Cars like hybrids or those with lower mpg
• Food like organic baby food, meat and water
• And many more useful green tips

So I finally made it to the de Young Museum in San Francisco today. I had tried to go before during the first weekend it opened and its anniversary when they had free admission, but could never get in. The first Tuesday of each month is free admission to the de Young Museum, and almost all the other major museums in San Francisco, such as the MOMA.

I was really excited to go in the museum, especially since today was free, as the first Tuesday of May. My friend Doris and I went straight to the observation deck (see photos above) and the views were amazing! I could see downtown San Francisco, to the Golden Gate Bridge to UCSF to Ocean Beach.

We then walked around several American art exhibits and grabbed a quick bite at the de Young Cafe. Inside, they had a nice eating area, with modern design and local, organic food. I spotted yogurt from Straus Creamery, Niman Ranch meat, and local, organic farm produce. I ordered an asparagus, mushroom risotto, and my friend had a vegetarian sandwich with grilled eggplant, mozzarella cheese, and hummus on foccacia bread. To be honest, my risotto was a bit hard to eat and I wish the rice was cooked softer. I noticed that the cafe sold local organic bear ale, something I’ve never seen at a museum cafe before! We ended our tour with more exhibits, and a special showing of Vivian Westwood’s fashion designs. Definitely check this place out!

What happens when you mix the founder of Burning Man, the founder of Odwalla, scientists, techies, organic farmers and JP Morgan as a sponsor? You get Digital Be-In: an artsy event with speakers, organic food and a party. Over 10 speakers came, with booths, drinks, and later a big party. It was definitely an eclectic mix; I couldn’t see that well in the dark, but about 200 people came to hear the speakers, and more were entering. Urth.tv did a live broadcast of the event on the internet. Here were some interesting things I saw:

• The first public unveiling of Wiser Earth, a nonprofit social networking site focused on activism and issues, very similar to Care2.com. It already has a community going and active membership.

• Urban Alliance for Sustainability, a nonprofit that focuses on environmental sustainability and building communities, was selling the Green Zebra, SF based coupon book. I took a look inside the book, and it was full of coupons from green businesses like natural food, yoga, spas, and travel. Here’s an example of a coupon inside from one of my favorite places to shop for groceries:

I bought the book for $25, and I know that I’ll already use several coupons inside that payoff the initial fee. If you’re in San Francisco or go often, I recommend buying this. But if you live outside of the city or don’t come often to the city, it won’t be worth it for you.

Other interesting talks included Autodesk’s sustainability design consulting, a group that helps design large scale things like buildings and PAX Scientific, a green research and development tech group.

To be honest, I’m not sure whether I’d go next year, I think the Green Festival and other conferences are a little more organized, but this is definitely a good attempt to get more people in the Bay Area aware of environmental issues by making it fun.

I just got back from Africa, and am recovering from travel sickness. But am feeling almost back to normal enough to post these events! Check out free cooking demonstrations and information straight from farmers at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, sponsored by CUESA. All events take place in the Dacor teaching kitchen in the arcade north of the Ferry Building’s clock tower.

• Saturday, March 17 ~ Market to Table events
  10:30 am – Meet the farmer Maria Catalan of Catalan Farms
  11:00 am – Cooking demonstration & book signing Ann Cooper, Renegade Lunch Lady and author of Lunch Lessons* Books for sale courtesy of Book Passage

• Saturday, March 24 ~ Market to Table events
  10:30 am – Meet the farmer Roscoe Zuckerman of Zuckerman’s Farm
  11:00 am – Cooking demonstration & book signing Charles Vollmar of Epicurean Exchange