Food desert: Urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.
This definition, provided by the USDA, accurately describes the situation in some of Arizona’s burgeoning cities, where there are neighborhoods of low-income people that have to travel long distances — mostly via public transportation — to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. Because of this hardship, many of the residents don’t bother to make such a trek.
Recognizing the negative impact that the lack of access to healthy food can have on a person’s health, a group of Arizona businesses and educators, including Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation and Chase Bank, organized the Fresh Express bus. Traveling between Phoenix and Tempe, the aisles of this renovated city bus are chockablock full of bins containing fresh fruits and vegetables — bringing nutritious produce to people at discount prices.
The Discovery Triangle, a corporation that assists developers in the triangle-shaped area between Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tempe, came up with the ingenious idea when it realized how few grocery stores existed there. Discovery Triangle president Don Keuth told Jill Galus of Good Morning Arizona that a recent study by St. Luke’s Health Initiative designated the area between downtown Tempe and downtown Phoenix as an official food desert. “Although we’re trying to help with economic development issues,” he said, “if we don’t have a healthy community, we’re not helping it reach its full potential.”
The Fresh Express bus starts making its rounds on March 25. Two days a week, the bus will make five stops — two at different public schools and three at places such as senior centers and community centers where a high concentration of low-income people gather. Accompanying services also include free health screenings provided by ASU’s College of Nursing and cooking ideas for health-conscious eating, courtesy of Fresh Express employees.
Instead of hauling bags of groceries across town on the bus, the bus now brings the groceries directly to shoppers. Talk about convenience.
MORE:An Oasis in One of America’s Largest Food Deserts: The Local Quick Mart
Tag: Nutrition
Can a Simple Lesson Really Persuade Kids to Finish Their Broccoli?
Kids don’t always take home the lessons they learn in school, but a new study found that low-income kids are improving their eating habits in response to several nutrition education programs. The study evaluated groups of families from three different states who participate in SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and found that certain nutrition education programs were effective in getting those kids to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption. The programs that worked best included lessons in school combined with take-home exercises designed to involve parents in figuring out how to work healthy, fresh foods into the family budget.
Kelp: The Sea Weed That Could Save Mankind
Bren Smith blends into the New England seascape, a waterman decked out in waders tooling around on his boat in the Long Island Sound. On this hazy July morning, he’s motored out aboard the Mookie III from a Stony Creek, Conn., dock to check on his oyster beds scattered between the Thimble Islands. Another boat putters by, and Smith raises his arm to point, his hands cloaked in rubber gloves to protect against the barnacles. “That guy,” Smith says, “is only catching about five pounds of lobsters a day. He doesn’t even pay for half his fuel with that.” And with this observation, Smith shatters the illusion that he’s just another fisherman chasing his catch.
Smith, in fact, is a genuine revolutionary, a man who sees powerful currents of change in the choppy waters off the Atlantic seaboard. And his neighbor, chugging past with his nearly empty hold, is proof that the end of a way of life is looming—and the beginning of a new one is at hand.
Climate change has affected the fishing beds. Ocean acidification, a product of rising atmospheric CO2 levels, kills off coral reefs, causes toxic algae blooms and dissolves the shells of oysters and other mollusks, researchers say.
And then there’s what Smith calls the “rape and pillage” of the world’s oceans—the overfishing that has dried up once-fertile sources of food, and sent unemployment in once-thriving seaside communities through the roof. Smith assigns himself a share of the blame. He fished for McDonald’s in the Bering Sea some years back, and pushed the cod stocks to the brink. But grousing about it, and hoping government regulation will solve the problem, won’t do the trick. What fishermen catch needs to be rethought. What fishermen should be doing, in Smith’s view, is harvesting kelp.
Yes, you read that right: the slimy brown sea vegetation that has grossed out generations of New England beachgoers. You might think of it as an annoyance of no particular significance to mankind. Smith sees it as a jobs program, an amazing source of nutrition, a strategic adaptation to the havoc being wrought by global warming—and, quite possibly, the next big thing in trendy New York City restaurants.
He calls it his “path of ecological redemption,” and he’s calling on fishermen, businessmen and consumers to follow it with him.
Continue reading “Kelp: The Sea Weed That Could Save Mankind”
Will Philly Be Known for Healthy Produce Instead of Cheesesteaks?
The first food most people would associate with Philadelphia is the cheesesteak—tasty and popular, but not exactly nutritious. Philly isn’t quite known for its fruits and vegetables, but Healthy Corner Store Initiative, is the nation’s biggest city-wide effort to bring healthy foods to convenient stores. The proactive initiative requires store owners to take small, low-risk steps toward stocking healthier items, meant to protect and support the business as it transforms from a source of sugary drinks and salty snacks to an easier source of nutritious foods. Not only has the successful partnership with the city department of health and local philanthropy Food Trust helped grow the program to over 600 stores in the city—it has also reached out to nearby Norristown, Penn., and over the bridge to Camden, N.J., to consult on similar programs for cities with similar struggles.
Community Groups Guarantee $5 Bags Filled With Local Fruits and Veggies
Healthy foods can be prohibitively expensive, but not every fresh produce provider is a moneymaker. In Weatherford, Texas, just west of Fort Worth, the Rotary Club and Weatherford Christian School (WCS) have developed programs to share low-cost fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables with the public. With 15 items in each bag, the $5 price tag means that the groups often lose money the deal, and they make up the cost “passing the hat” among members. The programs have become popular over the past few months, especially since the re-usable bags make the bargain even more attractive. For the WCS program, the environmentally friendly bags don’t just draw in more people, they also fuel a fundraising effort to serve nearby hungry populations. Parents can purchase unused bags and the proceeds go toward the school’s weekly Meals on Wheels route.
Chef Fixes the Food Bank by Creating Healthy Meals for Four
The long lines were getting longer at the Capital Area Food Bank, and volunteers noticed a growing sense of hopelessness. Even when people came to the food bank for healthy foods, reports indicated that they were taking the fruits and vegetables home, only to fry or “shower” the produce with salt. Kate Sherwood, the executive chef of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, accepted the challenge of creating nutritious, enticing meals, for under $8 for four people. Her attitude was a fresh one–“You can’t get to healthy without delicious”–but her approach is scientific and data-driven. She comes up with a meal and tests it out with the food bank. She edits the recipe when necessary. And when it’s successful, she adds the recipe to an online database and prints cards in English and Spanish to distribute at more than 500 local agencies. It’s turning into an engaging local movement; the outreach goes as far as store cash registers and bags of donated items.
[Image: Capital Area Food Bank]
Are Marketing Tricks the Secret to Making Healthier Choices?
Forrest General Hospital in Mississippi wants fewer heart patients. The hospital partnered with the American Heart Association to commemorate National Eating Healthy Day and the “My Heart, My Life” program, and they brought cafeteria revolutions to a new level. They didn’t stop at swapping out fatty, high-sodium foods for healthier options. And they didn’t stop at adding low-calorie and diet drinks. They took a marketing-minded approach, implementing strategic steps like rearranging vending machines to put the healthy options right in front of everyone’s faces. They connected with nearby colleges as well—students contributed recommendations based on the latest research, while chefs, culinary developers, and nutritional developers have been rotating in to create a well-rounded menu. The project became a comprehensive community-based program that can help people learn to make permanent diet changes.
How to Break the Northeast’s Biggest Farming Rule
The Philadelphia area has plenty of affluent communities ready and eager to participate in local shopping at farmers’ markets, but not far from those neighborhoods are vast food deserts. It’s a dramatic disparity, but local farmers have the power to help overcome the local food problems. Malaika Spencer is one of the farmers working to improve the local healthy options, and to do it she has transformed one of Bucks County’s traditional farms into a fully organic local resource. She has a revolutionary approach to the calendar, ignoring the Northeast’s standard six-month schedule. Instead, she’s using “storage crops like potatoes, winter squash, onions, garlic and turnips” to maintain her output through all four seasons. This way, her CSA shareholders enjoy her produce year-round and she becomes ingrained in the community’s agriculture, economy, and community.
Philly Activist Backs Fruit Into the Corner (Store)
Philly-based healthy food champion Brianna Almaguer Sandoval is bringing fresh fruits and vegetables back to her city’s corner stores, one bodega and market at a time. She runs the Healthy Corner Store Initiative for the non-profit The Food Trust. This initiative works with small store owners to make gradual steps towards carrying healthy food. I love the group’s practical “carrot” approach that starts with store owners carrying just four new products. For that, they get $100. There are incentives for every step forward they make to offer their customers more fresh produce and perishable foods.