For the Love of Organic Produce

Call toll free for LOVE and you might be surprised by what you get. No kinky phone talk or exotic dating services here. This is all about pesticide-free plums, chemically clean cucumbers and eco-logical legumes. We’re talking certifiably organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your door.

The Los Angeles Organic Vegetable Express, at 1-877-LOVE-4-YOU, buys local organic produce in bulk and then delivers the goods to subscribers. The owners of the company are “a bunch of friends who decided that all the money in the world cannot buy a sense of rightness on this planet.”

The fruits of their labors include, they tell us, promoting small, independent farmers and cooperatives, encouraging a self-sufficient community to live in (that would be us) and keeping the less fortunate in mind. The LOVE bunch will give at least 5% of annual net profits to charities, they say. Subscribers vote on which ones to support.

Here’s the rub: Pay $20 per week for enough farm-stand stuff for one person (a 12- to 15-pound box), $30 for a box that will feed two people (20 to 25 pounds) or $45 for a family (30 to 35 pounds). The same offer can be had on a biweekly plan, paid for in cash, C.O.D, credit card or, this being a high-minded market, barter. Agreeable trades will be considered on an individual basis.