The Giant near us (Westbard Ave in Bethesda) just remodeled and has an entire organic section with all kinds of stuff.

I dunno.. I guess I grew up as a kid with all our groceries from Giant and Safeway (no Whole Foods then) and I turned out OK, despite all the pesticides I assume was in my food.

I do go to MOMS for the Ayrshire Farms meat but other than that I find their prices HIGH.
I get a lot of shelf-stable organics WF 365 but I do grab Nature's Promise Organics from Giant and Safeway O Organics when on sale. For berries and other produce I stick to the Farmer's Market, Wegmans or WF. Harris Teeter has good house label organics too.

There's a new MOM's that just opened in the new Merrifield Town Center, and going next door is a local butcher. That's where we will be purchasing meat from when they open.

Right now it's WF.

We do some shopping at Safeway due to it's proximity (ours has a decent "natural" section of things we'd normally find at WF).

We're not able to get to Costco that often, but I've been happy to see a few organic options there. The organic chickens are a good deal.

Not everything at MOMs is organic. There are plenty of non-organic choices in the processed food aisles.

I guess that's true; I was thinking mainly of the produce section, where we do most of our shopping. I hate having to read the sign on every fruit and vegetable at WF b/c they have two versions of everything--organic and conventional. It's not always easy to find which is which.

But even in the canned and processed aisles, everything we buy that I can think of is organic (or in the case of canned fish, sustainably fished). It's not hard to find and I can't think of too many nonorganic things I've seen.

For the last two years we joined a CSA, and that was great, but we found we couldn't keep up with the cooking and the weekly pickups. MOMs and the occasional farmer's market when we have the time are about the right pace for our family routine.

Very rarely, and not for regular shopping trips, just if we're out of something and need it ASAP. I find we pay more at Giant or Safeway for most of the products we buy. Aside from WF and TJs, we get some things from Costco and a nearby farm. We do a mix of organic and natural and try to buy local when we can. Not all smaller sellers have organic certification but we trust their free range/natural claims.

What farms other than South Mountain creamery deliver to the area. I'm looking for some places to order from?

Falls Church and Arlington are both year round.

Are there year-round farmer's markets in NOVA?

Not everything at MOMs is organic. There are plenty of non-organic choices in the processed food aisles.

I buy my meat and eggs at the farmers market from farmers I have met and spoken to.

We do almost all our shopping at MOM. (Used to be "My Organic Market," now they call it "MOM's Organic Market.") It's great. Everything in the store is organic, so you don't have to read the labels on everything to figure out if it's conventional or organic like at WF. It's also significantly cheaper than WF.

Two differences cut the other way between MOM and WF. One is meat and fish selection. At WF, it's everything you could ever want. At MOM, it's very narrow. What they have is all good stuff and sustainable stuff, but it's expensive and there's not much of it. At WF, I wonder whether it's all as sustainable as I'd like, but at least it's labeled so I can do my own figuring, and you can find pretty much anything you want. The other difference is 365 brand--the one way to save money at WF. They don't have that at MOM, so you do end up paying more for organic brand stuff like canned food.

If you really want quality pasture-raised meat and eggs, they have them at many of the farmer's markets in our area. You can find them at Dupont, Vermont Ave., Rockville Pike, Bethesda Elementary, I imagine many others. That's the best way to be sure the animals lived natural lives--roaming freely, eating their regular diet, being treated humanely (in addition to being free of hormones and antibiotics). It's expensive, so to make the leap you also have to switch to eating meat less often and finding ways to stretch it. Which is what we should be doing, according to the health writers.

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. I guess the main reason why I prefer WF to SW or Giant is the meats. People who shop at WF - are you okay with their meats? If not, is there any better place where people in this area can realistically get meats?

Also, if I didn't have children, I would probably not care so much about all of this. For myself, eh, it doesn't matter a ton. For my kids, it matters to me.

We get most of our meat from South Mountain Creamery, other local farms (some deliver), or the butchers at Eastern Market (local butchers rely hugely on customer loyalty, and are extremely conscientious about their products). We are on a somewhat limited budget, which just means we eat less meat. Still a lot, though--we have meat with dinner usually 3-4 nights/week.

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. I guess the main reason why I prefer WF to SW or Giant is the meats. People who shop at WF - are you okay with their meats? If not, is there any better place where people in this area can realistically get meats?

Also, if I didn't have children, I would probably not care so much about all of this. For myself, eh, it doesn't matter a ton. For my kids, it matters to me.

We get most of our meat at Costco.

OP here again. I guess the main reason why I prefer WF to SW or Giant is the meats. People who shop at WF - are you okay with their meats? If not, is there any better place where people in this area can realistically get meats?

Also, if I didn't have children, I would probably not care so much about all of this. For myself, eh, it doesn't matter a ton. For my kids, it matters to me.

No.

Whole Foods, and rarely H-Mart for our Japanese/Vietnamese goodies (most of them not organic, sadly).

I used go to Giant all the time, like you, until I had DC1 and started researching pesticides and the organic labels.