Urban Organic Diva
Let’s talk convenience here. Is it easier to throw a burrito in the microwave or make a big stir fry of organic veg? Duh. Question answered. Or so you think. Enter Urban Organics, a service that literally bring the best of organic fruits and veggies to your door in the New York Area (don’t worry, other hoods, we got you covered too - read on!). This is one of our favorite ever discoveries and makes our life so easy, we could lay on a divan and fan ourselves with the sheer relief of the convenience of it all!
Are you still not sold on eating exclusively organic? You need to do some serious reading, sister. Start here: “Why Organic,” and just know that eating organic produce takes chemicals (some seriously dangerous suckers) out of your diet and keeps all the delicious, healthful, vitamins and goodies in. Only loony birds with a death wish should still nosh on conventional. Of course there are a few items you can get away with eating conventionally (thicker skins that hide the goodness from the chemicals like Bananas) but make sure to eat these top ten items ONLY organically.
Back to Urban Organic - it sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Fresh organic produce, smack in the middle of the city, and ten times cheaper than at Whole Foods or your corner Health Food store. It’s this simple, you choose whether you want a big box or a little box, and they deliver your order all year round! All this for anywhere from $25-45; depending on what size box you order. We eat a lot so we get the biggest box - can you say size queen? The Original Value Box ($34 a week) contains 15-18 items each week and will include things like arugula, carrots, peppers, sweet potatoes, squash, tangerines, and pears. There’s lots of seasonal variation and you can let them know if you want them to omit certain items (like if you have a hate fest with string beans, tell them, they’ll still dig you).
We've been playing with Squash this week.
We love how each weeks box is a surprise and allows us to experiment with new recipes (which they supply in the cute little recipe booklet that comes in each weeks box), and get varied vitamins (we can’t live on Fuji Organic Apples, as much as we’d like to!). Another cool draw to using these services - incentives! Not sure if the other companies offer this, but with Urban Organics, every time you refer a friend (who signs up) - you get a free box! That said, hook us up (under our founder’s name “Chloe Jo Berman”) if you are going to sign up. Pay that shit forward, biatch!
Some other companies who deliver organics in other areas (as always, please feel free to chime in the comments area with some we may have missed);
- Delicious Organics in Florida
- Greenling in Texas
- Spud in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles
- Diamond Organics (Everywhere - good for gift baskets)
- Door to Door Organics in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Virginia, and D.C.
- Boston Organics in (you guessed it, smarty pants) Boston
- Canada and UK folks can peruse this list for delivery in their area.
Door to Door Organics is in Colorado too :)
(11.03.2008 11:07 am)I use BRUNOS organics around Chicago. Delivery is only five bucks and they even have pre made meals. It’s an Amish family, lots of local honey, homemade breds, etc. So good!
(11.03.2008 9:00 pm)I’ve been doing Urban Organic for a few years now and really love it for the most part. Every once in awhile there will be a glitch, but overall it has been a great experience. My only problem is that I am torn between UO and a CSA. I feel like the CSA is a more responsible choice, being that it is all local and I know that my organic bananas were shipped from far away using fossil fuels.
(11.07.2008 11:54 am)Regarding URBAN ORGANIC (my post on http://www.yelp.com/biz/urban-organic-home-delivery-brooklyn):
I went into this thinking it was going to be a stress reliever for me because I would no longer have to worry about going to the local farmers markets in order to eat organic. Little did I know it was going to be a total nightmare when trying to get my first box.
After trying to call their office with many failed attempts I came to learn that on their first attempt in getting the delivery over to my home they failed because their vans broke down, but they did call to say they would deliver the box to me the next day. When the next day came no box showed up and I waited until 11:30pm although their expected delivery time is from 2-10pm. I then tried to call the office again with no success. On the third day with no expectation of my food ever arriving I come to find an Urban Organic box in front of my doorstep.
At this point I was so curious to see what took them 3 days to deliver to me that I ran in the house and tore open the box. Unfortunately, I must say that, that was the final straw. All the veggies inside the box were either wilted or with molded spots on them, most of the fruit was bruised and rotten and the ones that were salvageable were melee and were immediately thrown away.
When I called the office and finally spoke with a service rep all she could do was apologize but no refund was given. Not even a courtesy box for my troubles. And furthermore when trying to speak with any type of management there was none to be had only voice mails which were never responded to.
So in the end of it all I am out $63.98, only received 1 box from them and all of the food arrived spoiled and had to be thrown away. It is a real shame that a business like this is not as organized as they lead their potential customers to believe. If they were they would go far.
(12.07.2008 12:27 am)WOW - I’m so sorry you had such a crappy experience!! Mine has been overall really good. I wouldn’t say the customer service is STELLAR, but I hadn’t had even remotely as bad an experience. Thanks for sharing your story.
(12.07.2008 3:15 pm)