*EKOnoom does not pay me to write the stuff that you are about to read. Unfortunately. Hey, EKOnoom guys, you could pay me with veggies for a bit of publicity? Huh? What say you? wink wink*

A while ago I wrote a post about online groceries and healthy meals. Back then I have discovered EKOnoom, but I had not ordered from them yet. Now, after four orders, I can give a complete review.

So, here is how it works: you register at the website and then you can browse the different categories and add things to your cart, as you do with any other online shop. What is special about EKOnoom is that all the products are organic. There are also some special offer boxes, that contain a week’s worth of fruits and veggies for 2-4 people. These boxes contain only organic produce and mostly fruits and veggies that are grown locally with one or two imported, exotic fruits every now and then. So you eat locally, you eat produce that’s in season and you support small farms. EKOnoom has pretty affordable prices, as you order directly from the producers and the costs of transportation, packaging, storage and display at the grocery store are removed.

Of course organic produce is still more expensive than the crappy factory farm veggies that you find at all super markets. But still it’s much cheaper than a doctor’s appointment and the preservation of the natural environment is totally worth it.

After you make your choice of produce, organic wines, juices, pulses, cleaning products, snacks etc etc, you choose when you want your products to be delivered. Shipping prices vary, but if you order more than 50 euros, shipping is free, which I love.

A closed box. Ohhh the possibilities are endless!

Hmmm things become a bit more exciting! But I have to say all those white packaging “worms” are a bit annoying, as they stick to everything.

Tah-dah!!!!

And a different view.

For all that stuff we payed exactly 51,78 euros. The box included:

• 2 pomegranates
• 2 beets
• 2 courgettes
• 2 eggplants
• 2 avocados
• 1 ice-berg lettuce
• 1 lettuce of another type that I don’t know the name of
• an alien-looking root vegetable that tastes like fennel (edit: it’s celeriac. I googled it)
• 500 grams of red onions
• 2 kg potatoes
• 1 bottle of red wine (’cause we are wild like that)
• 1 bottle of elderflower syrup
• 3 bananas
• 1 package of baking soda. The baking type, not the cleaning type that you find at the super market.
• 1 cucumber
• a ton of carrots
• 2 parsnips
• 3 huge clementines that might actually not be clementines.
• 4 apples
• 8 small pears

I think that, for the amount of food we got, the price is really great. Plus, I love getting surprise packages by mail so we will definitely stick with it. Also, up to now all the fruits and veggies taste amazing with the exception of those clementine/orange things, that -sorry EKOnoom- taste just like straw. I don’t think they are clementines, because I ordered them before (are satsumas and clementines the same? I ordered satsumas) and they did taste great.

If you don’t like surprises, you can just order your fruits and veggies one by one and not get one of the offer boxes. But it is also a nice challenge to try and become creative with foods that you normally don’t eat. For example, I am not a fan of carrots and our box had “a ton” as I wrote. It was more like 10 carrots, but still, for me that’s too much. So I decided to roast them with olive oil and they do taste amazing like that!

If you don’t like something, just roast it. Impressive transformation.

If you don’t live in the Netherlands, it’s still worth it to do a bit of research for an online bio market. I am sure that, even if the Dutch are the first that thought of it, they can’t be the only ones. And do let me know if you find something similar in other countries.