Put Your Body First, With The Essentials Bundle

 By Briana Zagami

Local Roots is dedicated to bringing New Yorkers, local, seasonal, and nutrient dense foods year-round. Seasonality is particularly important during the winter months, because the foods you eat determine your fate up against flu season. Seasonal fruits and vegetables get to keep all of their nutrients because unlike their counterparts, they are not harvested too early, have not traveled long distances, and are not covered with preservatives. You wouldn’t go sunbathing in the Rockaways during December, so why would you eat a strawberry in the winter?

Each Winter, New Yorkers prep for the winter by getting their flu shot. Offices, subways, and gyms become a petri dish of germs determining how many sick days you’ll be able to convert to beach days in the Summer. What if I told you what you eat during the Winter could help keep your immune system on high alert? The Local Roots ‘Essentials Bundle’ is essential to your health.

Now, let’s break it down.

Seasonal Fruit. I know, it sucks, there’s not a lot in season fruit-wise here in NYC during the Winter.  With Local Roots, you’ll get 3 pounds of apples twice a month. That’s enough to keep you busy slicing for cheese boards and making ciders and pies until Spring Break. Not to be confused with a grocery store apple, a Local Roots apple a day will actually keep the doctor away. Our apples have more nutrients than the ones you see in the grocery store. It’s because those apples were shipped from Washington and cold-stored for a year, they might even have preservatives or other additives to mimic appearance. Don’t be fooled.

Locally Grown Vegetables. Here’s where you can get creative with 5 different varieties of USDA organic vegetables delivered to you every week. Sure, you might be familiar with potatoes and carrots, but you’ll definitely be introduced to some new vegetables that you might not have cooked with yet. Don’t run away just yet, Local Roots provides recipe cards to guide you through the intimidating ones like celeriac and sunchokes. By the end of the season, you’ll be teaching your friends a thing or five about your new beloved vegetables. Since these veggies are grown within 2 hours of NYC, rest assured they are jam packed with the nutrients they were meant to deliver to your body. Health is wealth.

While your friends are still scared of another romaine outbreak, you’ll be munching on your fresh leafy greens that were grown aeroponically at AeroFarms, an indoor vertical farming facility just across the hudson in Newark, NJ. Picture a farm that looks like it belongs in a futuristic sci-fi movie! At AeroFarms, your salad greens are grown with minimal environmental impact and zero food safety risks. Their salad greens are super flavorful because of the technology used to grow these greens. They use specific colored hues in the LED lights to bring out certain tastes and nutrients in the plants, and the nutrients are also sprayed through the air. It’s like the plants’ very own disco.

If you’re still wondering whether the chicken or the egg came first, you should really be asking yourself where and how the chicken was raised. Grocery shopping has become more of a chore with manufacturers utilizing misleading labels. Did you know eggs can claim the organic label, but those chickens still live in cages? Eggs can be deemed free-range, and still have their beaks cut and be subject to forced molting? Eggs can be labeled cage-free, and never see the light of day?

In order to ensure full transparency, it’s best to avoid this confusing landscape of egg production, and buy directly from farmers you trust. Nutrient diverse diets that are a result of a hen running around on pasture, result in more flavor and more nutrients. Local Roots eggs are pasture-raised and antibiotic free, which our members praise for their taste and yolk-color. With Local Roots eggs you’re getting TWICE the nutrients with legit pasture-raised eggs, because these chickens eat nutrient diverse foods. You wind up getting more nutrients for your dollar. You can meet our egg farmers here!

So now you must be thinking, what’s the beef? Besides false advertising claims sweeping the grocery aisles, the big issue here is grain-fed versus grass-fed. If you like looking at things by weighing the pros and cons, then this should be easy. There are no pros of grain-fed beef. There are no cons of grass-fed beef. Simple. Grass-fed beef has less saturated fats, 4X more vitamin E, 10X more vitamin A, 5X omega-3 fats, and 2X more CLA than grain-fed beef. Local Roots offers a variety of cuts of meats, from pork belly to chipper steak and sweet/spicy italian sausages.  

Now that you understand the difference between your grocery store and Local Roots, the benefits of Local Roots products are clear! The Essentials Bundle has no secrets and no strings attached. This share includes 5 types of organic veggies delivered weekly, 1 dozen eggs delivered weekly  (pasture-raised and antibiotic-free), 3lbs of fruit delivered twice a month, and 2 packs of meat delivered twice a month (pasture-raised and antibiotic-free). This farm share is ideal for households of 3+ or people who cook 5+ meals. 

Now let's get cooking!