TBS is a huge success proving many hands make light work
The Bountiful Sprout is in essence a web-based, local food co-op that allows its members to shop from home. Linking farmers and producers directly to customers, TBS keeps our farmers in business and keeps our food local. Now 60 families strong and growing every day, the Bountiful Sprout is quickly becoming our very own local grocery where we can find all we need and more without driving into San Marcos or Austin. And even better we are supporting our own, like Arnosky Farm, Morning Glory Farm, and Chisolm Beef, just to name a few.
We hear about our problems like the health care crisis, our lack of energy independence and climate change everyday, but let’s hear about some solutions. What most of us don’t realize is that the way we currently grow, process, ship and eat food in America is at the heart of all three of these problems. It now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. As Michael Pollan, author of the bestseller Omnivore’s Dilemma puts it, “when we eat from the industrial food system, we are eating oil and spewing green-house gases.” In contrast, food eaten closer to where it is grown is fresher and requires less processing, making it more nutritious.
People now are paying attention to where their food is coming from and how it is grown. The bigger and more industrial our food system, the more vulnerable it is to catastrophe. The best way to protect our food against contamination, like the recent spinach scare, is to decentralize it. Markets for alternative kinds of food like organics, local, pasture fed, and humanely raised meats, are thriving like never before because they are the solution to the broken system in place today. Here in Wimberley, the Bountiful Sprout is our solution. Buying our food locally is one small thing we can do to change our health and our path to energy independence.
“It’s exciting to think that this could be the beginning of something huge in Wimberley. Wheatsville Co-op and Whole Foods started in just the same way!” says TBS member Terri Burney-Bisett gazing into her bushel basket with a smile. Members pick up their orders every other Wednesday at the Bountiful Sprout located on RR12 just south of Jacob’s Well Road, right across from Clifford’s Wine Bar.
The Bountiful Sprout has made it their mission to not only keep shoppers from having to go into Austin or San Marcos for groceries, but to keep workers here as well, creating new economic opportunities for our residents. Those interested in becoming producers for the fastest growing group of responsible shoppers in the hill country, please go to the website, www.bountifulsprout.org and join the Forum. There you will find a wish list of products members want to find at the site and buy locally. Together, we can bring home our dollars, our passions, and our hopes for the future of Wimberley.