Farmers’ Markets

• East Nashville Farmers’ Market
• Franklin Farmers’ Market
• Rutherford County Farmers’ Market (Murfreesboro)

Commercial Stores & Services Providing Healthy, Fresh Food

• Plumgood Food
• The Produce Place – Nashville
• The Turnip Truck – Nashville
• Trader Joe’s – Nashville
• Whole Foods Market – Franklin
• Whole Foods Market – Nashville

Online Research for Local Food

• Eat Well Guide – find good food: local, sustainable, organic
• Local Table – A Guide to Food & Farming in Middle Tennessee
• Local Table Seasonality Chart – A handy chart for growing seasons & local sources for produce
• Pick Tennessee Products – TN Dept. of Agricultural database of TN farmers & produce
• Pick-Your-Own Sources (Middle TN) – United States & international listing of farmers, including a few customer reviews
• Tennessee Farm Fresh – Alliance with Tennessee Farm Bureau & TN Dept. of Agriculture to connect farmers with consumers and encourage buying locally
• Tennessee Growing Seasons for Produce – Pick Tennessee‘s chart for growing seasons

Fresh From the Farm

Near Lebanon / Mt. Juliet / Further East:

• Bountiful Acres CSA – Watertown, TN (strawberries, raspberries, eggs, herbs, produce, heritage turkeys)
• Breeden’s Orchard & Country Store – Mt. Juliet, TN (apples, peaches) children may not pick peaches
• Circle S Farm – Lebanon, TN (produce, strawberries)
• Covered Wagon Farm – Lebanon, TN (free-range eggs) 615-453-5169
• Folsom Farms – Alexandria, TN (beef, eggs, produce)
• Kelley’s Berry Farm – Castalian Springs, TN (blackberries, blueberries, strawberries)
• Lebanon Farmers’ Market – 1 block west of town square (various farmers, none organic that I’ve seen) Jeff Baine, 615-443-2824
• Mitchell Lester Farm Stand – Lebanon, TN (produce, fruit baked goods, spreads)
• Parker Farms – Watertown, TN (uses horse-drawn power for produce, fruit, honey)
• Peaceful Pastures – Hickman, TN (meat, poultry, dairy, more)
• Pratt’s Orchard & Garden Center – Lebanon, TN (apples, peaches, produce, strawberries)
• West Wind Farms – Deer Lodge, TN (meats, poultry, dairy, eggs, and more)

Near Murfreesboro / LaVergne:

• Jones Mill Farm (organic) – Lavergne, TN (peaches, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, plums produce, breads, spreads)
• The Blueberry Patch (no pesticides for 5 yrs) – Murfreesboro, TN (blueberries) Read article

Near Franklin / Serving Franklin / Further South:
*Attends Franklin Farmers’ Market

• Arugula’s Star of Neal Family Farms – Columbia, TN (greens, produce) *
• Bonnie Blue Farm – Lewisburg, TN (goat cheese) *
• Boyd Mill Farm – Franklin, TN (blackberries)
• Crabtree Family Farms (profile) – Columbia, TN (all-natural beefalo) *
• Delvin Farms – Franklin, TN (organic CSA, produce) *
• Golden Bell Blueberry Farm – Franklin, TN (blueberries)
• Hatcher Family Dairies – Franklin, TN (pasteurized, not homogenized) *
• Mamushi Nature Farm – Franklin, TN (beef, pork, chicken, eggs, produce)
• Morning Glory Orchard – Nolensville, TN (apples, peaches, jams, ciders, more)
• Rocky Glade Farm – Eagleville, TN (winter CSA, beef, lamb, eggs, produce) *
• Paradigm Farms – College Grove, TN (all-natural beef)
• Tap Root Farm – Franklin, TN (all-natural beef)
• Three Meadows Farm – Columbia, TN (beef, pork, poultry, eggs) *
• Vine Hill Farm – Franklin, TN (strawberries)
• West Wind Farms – Deer Lodge, TN (meats, poultry, dairy, eggs, and more) *

Near Nashville / Serving Nashville:
* Attends Nashville Farmers’ Market

• Delvin Farms (Organic CSA, produce) *
• Hatcher Family Dairies (pasteurized, not homogenized) *
• West Wind Farms – Deer Lodge, TN (meats, poultry, dairy, eggs, and more) *

That’s Meredith’s question.  Okay, I’ll bite.  But reluctantly.  Because I am not claiming to be frugal when it comes to our family’s food.  Am I frugal elsewhere in our budget to allow for a larger food budget?  Yes. But I do spend more on food that is healthy, and for us that often means organic.

Back to Meredith’s question:  How do you cook healthy without spending a lot?  (Which, by the way, doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how.  She does a great job of it already.  I’m just sharing my tips here.) 

I have one HUGE answer for this that I have not implemented yet but plan to start this year:

Grow your own food.  A vegetable garden, herbs, fruit trees and bushes, a cow, chickens, whatever you can squeeze into the green space you have.  It’s a different kind of investment:  Time.  Space.  Hard work.  Inconvenience.  Patience.  Diligence.  And I’m not sure I’m up to the task, but that’s the only real answer I’ve found. 

When I talk to people who have grown their own food, they tell me I’ll love it.  And by golly, I’m just going to do it whether I want to or not.  Healthy, organic food for my family is that important to me at this point. 

Plus, it’s good for the environment (less packaging that ends up in landfills, fewer emissions from transporting the food thousands of miles) not to mention that the nutritional value is much higher than foods grown and picked before they’re ripe and/or loaded with pesticides and other junk.

As for cooking healthy NOW and working that into our budget, I have implemented some steps that have reduced our overall grocery bill so I can spend more on healthier foods.  Most of these tips have also happily saved me time in the kitchen and inches on the waistline and bum:

• Keep it simple.  A meal of grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, and fresh carrots is much healthier, cheaper, and less time-consuming than Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Casserole, prepared or homemade rolls, and orange jello.
• Menu plan!  Oh yes, that’s an important one.  If you feel your spending is out of control or you have nothing to eat for dinner but all kinds of food in the pantry, discipline yourself to menu plan.  
• Make it from scratch.  It’s usually healthier and cheaper.
• Rarely fix dessert.  We typically have ice cream, which I stock up on when it goes on sale, for the hubby’s bedtime snack.  Other than that, desserts happen on special occasions (and at Grandma’s house!).  That’s one less category of items on the menu plan and grocery shopping list and several fewer inches on my bum.
• Cut out bread (rolls) with every meal.  I rarely buy prepared rolls anymore.  Once I learn to make whole-grain bread, I’ll probably start serving bread occasionally since it makes my hubby happy.
• Eat less meat. Gradually increase the vegetable portions on each plate and decrease the meat portions to stretch one meal of meat to last for two meals.
• Eat breakfast for supper.  It’s a nice change to have scrambled eggs & sprouted grain toast, omelets (using leftovers), or whole grain pancakes for supper every now and then.
• Make soup (using leftovers) more often.
• Buy whole chickens.  They are cheaper by the lb and you can get several meals out of them plus homemade chicken broth for soup.
• Shop the “manager specials.”  These are the sales that are even cheaper than the sale price. I like to shop at Publix for their Greenwise, all-natural meats and stock up the freezer with manager specials.  Just be sure to cook them right away or freeze them safely.
• Don’t buy food just because it’s on sale.  On the other hand from shopping the manager’s specials, don’t buy food you don’t typically eat just because it’s on sale.  Sometimes I find myself wanting to buy unhealthy snack foods just because they’re on sale.  Stick to your guns and walk away!  It’s not a good deal if it adds an item to your grocery receipt that wouldn’t have been there had it not been on sale.
• Get it directly from the source.  Many of our local organic farmers sell their produce and meats to local health food markets where you can buy those items for a premium price.  But they also sell their goods at farmers’ markets or through CSAs (community supported agriculture) for much, much cheaper.  Frequest farmers’ markets and roadside stands or join a CSA.
• Limit or cut out entirely processed boxed foods and snacks.  We’ve reduced snack foods to apples, bananas, whole-grain crackers, raisins, carrots, celery, pineapple, and other fruits (when they’re on sale). Fewer processed, boxed, snack foods means fewer grocery dollars and better health.
• Move any boxed foods to glass storage containers.  Hang with me on this one.  I’ve started moving our foods that are boxed (the whole-grain crackers, raisins, etc.) to glass jars instead of leaving them in the boxes they were packaged in.  I did it for my own organizational purposes, but I realized later that my kids started choosing snacks differently.  They quit asking for the boxed foods (that were now in glass jars) and started asking for fresh fruits and vegetables.  It dawned on me that half of the issue with eating junk foods is that we respond to the bright colors and images and words on the packaging.  Now, my kids are gravitating more toward the bright colors of the natural fruits and veggies.  Fascinating!  So, once again, fewer processed, boxed snack foods means fewer grocery dollars.
• Enforce a “no eating unless you’re in the kitchen” rule.  Whole apples are the only exception.  Originally this was enforced because we had the house on the market, and I admit it was tough to change the rule.  I felt like a mean mommy.  But once the kids got used to it, I noticed they weren’t as motivated to eat just because they had the munchies (especially while watching a movie or TV) if they had to drag themselves away from their activities to eat in the kitchen.  Now they eat only when they are actually hungry.  And since they’re eating in the kitchen anyway, a squishy banana or a juicy peach is a fine option since they have a napkin and plate handy.  Before, they used to choose less-messy but more expensive snacks like boxed crackers that they could carry to another room with them.  Again, this one equals more healthy choices and fewer grocery dollars on boxed foods.

Enjoy!