Recently, I have heard and read many reports and interviews- on NPR, network television, and in major newspapers. The gist of the interviews is that people who used to be able to buy any kind of food they chose, without counting the cost, are now having trouble making their grocery dollars stretch. And it seems that the decision that many of them are making is to eliminate organics.

I have good news for them, and everyone who else who wants to buy healthy food for their families and feels that they can’t afford it. There are good, healthy alternatives to expensive certified organic products. Most notably, let me mention Missouri’s Best Beef and Heritage Acres pork.

In late June of this year, Sappington Market held a “Meet the Farmer” event in the parking lot. Many members of the Missouri’s Best Beef Cooperative were on hand to cook their delicious, all-natural, aged beef and serve it to the public. Everyone who tasted this delicious, hormone-free, antibiotic-free beef noticed the difference immediately. The price is also very close to conventional beef prices. Anyone who can afford to buy beef can afford to buy this beef.
At the beginning of the tasting event, I walked through the meat department and it was piled high with packages of all cuts of Rancher’s Best Beef (the name by which Missouri’s Best markets their beef). At the end of the two-day event, I had to look hard to find even one package.

Because Sappington Market can buy larger cuts of beef and package it themselves, the price has been kept very affordable. It is a fraction of the price of the same or lesser quality beef in more upscale stores. Many of the older customers who sampled the beef said, “I’d forgotten what good beef really tastes like.”

Heritage Acres pork is also hormone-free, antibiotic-free, humanely raised and traceable.
The hogs are heirloom breeds which are naturally leaner, and also easier to keep healthy.
Among the methods used to fight infection in these animals is the use of essential oils like oregano oil. Heritage Acres growers do not ever give their animals antibiotics or hormones, and the result is healthy, lean, tasty and tender beef.

Sappington Market is also developing relationships with growers who grow their produce to the standards of certified organic, but without the high cost generally associated with organic. In the future, look for the label “Certified Naturally Grown” for your assurance that the produce has been grown to exacting organic standards.