Want to introduce youth to the farmers' market? Check La Semilla's farmers' market activity guide. The handout asks students to walk around the market and asks questions like, "What kinds of foods are available here?" and provides a handful of questions to ask a vendor. Get your youth organization acquainted with all the healthy options they can find at their local farmers' market. Farmers' Market ...
Read MoreFresh fruits and vegetables are hard to find in East Palo Alto. Unlike its southern neighbor Palo Alto, East Palo Alto only has one local grocery store and one weekday farmers' market that sometimes only attracts three vendors.Many area farmers skip the market in East Palo Alto because they can make three times as much money in high-income areas and at markets on weekend mornings. A predominantly Latino city, East Palo Alto's one grocery store, Mi Pueblo, caters to Latino cooking, but many residents still travel elsewhere for cheaper groceries. Despite all this, advocates and community organizations in East Palo Alto haven't given up on getting their neighborhood on a healthier track. Before entering the East Palo Alto Community Farmers' Market located in front of the ...
Read More"Rethink Your Drink" began as a educational campaign captained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many communities across the country have used the campaign to educate folks on how sugary drinks affect your body and to identify healthy, tasty alternatives to high-calorie sugar-sweetened beverages. Currently, Riverside County, California is bringing medical professionals, schools, policy makers, and community groups together to fight sugary drinks through the "Rethink Your Drink" campaign. With the prevalence of childhood obesity in Riverside County at 38.2 percent (higher than California’s 38 percent) and, with scientific evidence that links consumption of sugary beverages with weight gain as being stronger than any other food category, the campaign has been ...
Read MoreAfter-school sports are a great way to for kids to be active, build confidence, and make new friends. However, many parents bring junk food for snacks after the game and between innings, sending mixed messages about health to the kids. If you want to take a stand against unhealthy snacks at your kids' sports games, but don't know how to get other parents on board, consider this Soccer Snacktivism Handbook courtesy of Real Mom Nutrition. In it you'll find a sample letter to other team parents, answers to frequently asked questions about healthy snacks, and a slideshow. Who knows? Maybe your voice was just the right nudge other parents needed to kick out the ...
Read MoreFolks who use food stamps (SNAP) to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets in South Carolina might soon see their purchases double. During state budget negotiations, the Senate Finance Committee decided to include a provision committing $1.9 million to a program that doubles the first $5 of food stamp benefits when they are used to buy fresh produce at farmers markets. In other words, get $10 worth of veggies for $5. The double dollars program, which has already been approved in a handful of states, has to get the O.K. from the federal government since it deals with a federal program, SNAP. Read more about the provision's progress! Update: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is asking South Carolina for input on what food items would be ...
Read MoreA well-written food plan can help a city ensure that healthy, affordable food access is a long-lasting priority that will affect the next generation of Latino children. The small city of Damascus, Oregon took a big step when they approved an extensive food plan for their community, called the Healthy Damascus Food Plan. A city planner, city staff, and public health officials began working on the plan in 2011. Through countless meetings with the public, various assessments, and research the group identified ways to write healthy food policies into the city's current and long-term goals. Among the policy recommendations in the plan were policies to support the growth of local farmers' markets including the acceptance of nutrition assistance, economic incentives to ...
Read MoreMore folks can use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for fresh, healthy food at farmers' markets in Pittsburgh, thanks to Just Harvest, a non-profit advocating for economic justice. The program works by allowing people to swipe their electronic benefits transfer card at the market and receive wooden tokens that can be exchanged with most vendors to buy food. Live in Pittsburgh? Find a farmers' market or farm stand that accepts SNAP near ...
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Arlington Heights School District, located outside of Chicago IL, has begun bringing healthier options to their schools. They now offer options like poached chicken slider sandwiches, grilled zucchini chips, toasted chickpeas, and turkey meatball soup. They wish to bring these new options to their district in order to provide a healthy lunch, while giving students fun, appealing foods. Arlington Heights has been working on a trial and error basis, even having their first public tasting this summer to introduce the upcoming new menu items. Not all their healthy options have worked in the past, causing them to stop serving fish last year because students simply were not buying it. This school district is also changing it's overall offerings. By bringing in more fruit and ...
Read MoreThe Farmers & Crafts Market of Las Cruces now accepts nutrition assistance for a number of healthy foods, thanks to La Semilla Food Center, a nonprofit organization that is spearheading the project. With a grant from the USDA specifically aimed to improve low-income communities' access to farmers' markets, La Semilla worked to get electronic benefit transfer (EBT) machines into the market and also improve other markets in the area. La Semilla has also employed a person to be present at an informational booth where the EBT machines and tokens will be kept. "We've got lots of partners that we're working with for this," said Rebecca Wiggins-Reinhard, Farm to School Director with La Semilla. To get EBT accepted in Las Cruces, they had to work with WIC (Women, Infants ...
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