The last few weeks I have been buying organic vegetables from a delivery service called Riverford Organics.  I always used to buy my vegetables from the supermarket, not thinking about haw the vegetables I was eating were grown.  After taking the advice from many of your comment on my post Veggie Box Dilemma, I decided to take the plunge with Riverford.

So far I have been highly impressed with the quality of the vegetables.  Although slightly more expensive than your average veg from the supermarket, using an organic veggie box service for me works out cheaper than buying organic vegetables from the supermarket.  The quantities that you receive are huge and I’m enjoying the novelty of having my vegetables delivered to my door.

My first organic vegetable box…

I also received a large cucumber which I didn’t manage to take a picture of.  This box was one of the favourites box which is suggested for 2-3 people for the week, but I found that this box lasted way more than a week.  I still have some of the potatoes left over.

So what are some of the benefits of eating organic veg?

• Not grown using chemicals- non-organically farmed vegetables are often sprayed with pesticides to kill insects that live off the growing vegetables.  Many of these pesticides can potentially have harmful effects. 
• Kinder to the environment- intensive farming that is used to grow conventional vegetables erodes the top soil and can eventually damage the habitat of the surrounding wild life.
• Higher level of nutrients- research suggests that organically grown vegetables possess a greater level of nutrients than conventional vegetables.

Also, because organic vegetables are grown naturally and not grown to look pretty, you can get some really funny looking veg through your door and somethings that were unexpected…

My second order said that I would receive a butternut squash:

But what I actually got was this beast…

I stared at it.

It stared back at me.

What the hell am I supposed to do with such a enormous monster of a pumpkin?

My poor knives couldn’t cut through it’s tough skin, so I literally had to shove this monster in the oven and bake it whole. Luckily it fit!

As you can imagine I have a lot of pumpkin to get through. So far I have made a delicious bowl of Pumpkin and Cinnamon Oats for breakfast this morning.

I cooked the oats in water and soya milk and heated them through in the microwave with pumpkin, maple syrup and cinnamon. I topped it with 0% TOTAL Greek yoghurt and some pumpkin butter.  This was so so delicious!

Lunch surprisingly didn’t feature pumpkin at all.  I decided to have my Healthy Chilli with a salad made from spinach, roasted swede, goat’s cheese and pearl barley.  I also ate two oranges and a pear.

For dinner the monster pumpkin was calling my name.  So I decided to make up a quick pumpkin soup made by blitzing up cooked pumpkin, vegetable stock and a pinch of curry powder.

After dinner I ate some chopped fruit sprinkled with cinnamon with half a mug of hot chocolate soya milk.

Yesterday my supervisor sent me home from uni as I still have this stupid cold.  He also told me not to come in today.  Despite this I still managed to fit in some very tasty food too.

Breakfast:

Lunch:

This soup is really tasty and filling, really great for when your feeling under the weather. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of red lentils
• 3 cups of carrots
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 2 baby onions
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 tsps of cinnamon
• 500ml of vegetable stock

It was simply a case of cooking off all of the vegetables and lentils and blending them together in a blender with the stock and cinnamon until smooth.  Voila!

Dinner was a mix of thing that I had cooked on Sunday.

I mixed pearl barley, brussel sprouts, pumpkin, sliced pepper with a table spoon of low fat cream cheese and topped it with a boiled egg.  This made for a quick and easy dinner that was really yummy!

I don’t know if I am going to uni tomorrow yet.  I attempted to go for a run this evening and failed abysmally due to all the coughing and spluttering.  I came straight back home and settled for some light ab and leg exercises Tracy Anderson style.  I’m determined to go running again tomorrow even if it is only a short distance. 

What are your view points on organic vegetables? Do you think they are worth the money?

Don’t forget to check out my MuleBar Giveaway.  It ends tomorrow at midnight!