Plz recommend: beyond organic produce and meat
Where do you find highest quality organic nutrient dense produce?
Context: moved back to Berkeley from our 10 acre farmstead in Oregon because of my sons rare and hard to treat epilepsy. Keto diet not working. Pharmaceuticals not working. We’re heading towards gut healing as the next approach and need very clean and high quality foods.
Aside from farmers markets can anyone help me with sourcing quality foods? Berkeley bowls organic section feels a bit lacking in quality and diversity. Small farms we can buy bulk meat from?
Jun 26, 2024
Parent Replies
I'm a long-time BB shopper, but for produce I generally go to Monterey Market. It's a small store, which limits variety, but their organic produce tends to be in better shape than BB's, particularly the lettuce.
Have you considered any CSA boxes or subscriptions from local farms? https://www.feedsonoma.com/ makes a drop at Redfield Cider on College Ave.
There are also some meat/seafood options in the Bay Area but I haven't tried them. https://sonomacountymeatco.com/collections/meat-box or https://www.fourstarseafood.com/
I can recommend the family ranch 'Five Marys' for sourcing high quality meats - they are located near the Oregon border in CA, and have really high standards for the care and stewardship of their animals, and even opened their own butchery on their property (USDA certified, etc.) They ranch beef, lamb, and pork, and everything is superior to anything you could buy in a store. I won't go back to supermarkets again for meat, as the quality is outstanding. You can purchase as you go, or join the meat club and set up regular deliveries, or you can even go in on a whole steer or part thereof with other families. https://fivemarys.com/
As an aside, feel free to reach out if you need a referral to a pediatric epileptologist.
I've been in Berkeley for about a year. There are numerous farmers markets almost daily in the area. I find the produce at Monterey Market superior to Berkeley Bowl.
To add to my post, the fish and meat market stores around the corner from Monterey Market have excellent meats and fish.
Freestone ranch in Petaluma sells custom boxes of beef. Pick up in Petaluma at the butcher
Riverdog Farms in Guinda has veggie/fruit boxes delivered to the Bay Area as well as pork, sausages and other meat cuts farm fresh eggs as well
Full Belly Farms in Guinda as well
For organic produce, have you gone to Monterey Market? Lots of diversity there. For nutrient dense high quality food have you tried Three Stone Hearth? They have really delicious food as well as classes if you're interested.
I'm sorry to read about your son's epilepsy. I hope you find good practitioners that can help.
Aside from farmers markets (Grand Lake & Claremont are my favorites), I recommend Eatwell farms, they have great produce and also meats. They deliver to the East Bay 1x week from their farm in Winters. I also recommend Turner Grass Fed Beef - for some reason, their website doesn't appear to be working but I've ordered a 1/4 steer from them twice and been very happy with the quality. Feel free to reach out and I can share his email/phone number if you'd like. Eatwild.com (https://www.eatwild.com/products/california.html) also has a large list of local farms to source meat.
You may want to check out Three Stone Hearth for gut healing foods if you can’t cook every meal from scratch.