Here are other reasons I loved being part of a CSA:
- My food had a story. I could see who grew my food and he could tell me about the process.
- The taste was amazing, so amazing that even Josh would dive in to some of the fruit and veggies :) When you eat more local foods, they can continue to grow and ripen in nature instead of the truck or airplane used to transport them to your local store. Only those foods ripe and ready are picked for you to enjoy. Peak taste and peak nutrition can go hand in hand.
- I love a surprise. I enjoyed the challenge and opportunity to try and prepare new foods each week. I often didn't know what I would get until the day before pick up.
- I ate more variety. I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to buy the same things at the store. This little gift I picked up every two weeks gave me the opportunity to eat a greater variety of foods and thus expand the flavor and nutrition I offered my body.
Having talked about all the wonderful benefits of a program like this, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that not all of these programs will fit in to a food budget. As much as I loved my CSA, I had a change in food budget and thus could no longer indulge myself. I really missed those Thursday pick-ups at the market.
On a happier note, let's flash forward to the present. Within one week of starting work, I learned about a program that delivers fresh produce to our office. What? I'm at work every day- how convenient would that be? Can I afford this?
After doing a little investigating (because that's what I do), I found out the Veggie Van is so much more. The Veggie Van delivers produce to work places and other central locations, and it also delivers fresh produce to the community. Veggie Van is part of a research study looking at the impact of a mobile food market (meaning the fresh foods come to you) on children's food intake and body weight status defined by BMI. BMI stands for body mass index and this is a calculation of height and weight. It is a very rough estimate of a person's percent body fat. The study is also looking at how and why this mobile market might lead to changes in food intake.
Veggie Van is part of a larger organization called Community Nutrition Partnership. I found out that a colleague of mine, and someone who I feel played a huge role in mentoring me through the graduate school decision and application process, created this program when she was a student at the University. She definitely left a legacy, I can only hope to do the same :)
The mission of the Community Nutrition Partnership is "to grow healthier communities by increasing access to fresh, local, affordable food." They use market-based approaches to increase access to healthy, local food for all people of all incomes and backgrounds. Essentially this means they buy in bulk from the farmers. Buying in bulk allows them to provide foods to the public at a lower cost. For me, the highlight of the program is the sliding scale for the produce. The box delivery program charges a slightly higher price and you can always pay more than what is posted. The 'extra' money from is then used to offset the lower cost charged to the community-based portion of the program. This allows more people to afford healthy, local, yummy foods. I love to think that my commitment and interest in eating healthy is a little help to let others do the same :) The Veggie Van is kind of like the Tom's shoes concept. Buy a pair and donate a pair for the same, slightly higher price.
No doubt about it, eating healthy can cost more than the processed convenient foods that are readily available. But that doesn't mean you can't eat relatively healthy on a lower food budget. (I can come back to tips another time.) My nutrition policy seminar will continue to teach me more about the big-picture politics behind why less healthy foods are cheaper (think financial support from the Farm Bill), but in the mean time I want to share a link to a pretty provocative and interesting question, "Could taxing packaged foods reduce obesity?"
The last thing I would like to bring light to this week is hunger. September is Hunger Action Month. I feel like this ties in nicely to my focus on healthy foods and helping others gain access to those same foods. Oftentimes we associate hunger with developing countries, but it exists in the United States.
Feeding America is the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity. Their mission is to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger. Their statistics show more than 1 in 5 children lives in a household with food insecurity. This means they do not always know where they will get their next meal. The United States Department of Agriculture has defined varying levels of food insecurity with or without hunger, but essentially this means people have a reduced quality, variety and desirability of food intake.
What would it look like to be food insecure? You can take the SNAP Challenge and find out. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Think of this like the ice bucket challenge that supported ALS. By accepting the SNAP Challenge, you will commit to eating all of your meals from a limited food budget comparable to that of a SNAP participant- $1.50 per meal. If you're not up for the challenge but would like to read about people who accepted, just google it.
Without good, consistent nutrition children and adults will experience physical and mental health problems.
Instead of a list of tips, I want to challenge you to come up with one small way you can impact hunger in a local organization, community or the nation.
Until next time :)
