If we are what we eat, statistically speaking, most of us are junk.
You can keep your personality flaws to yourself, I’m strictly criticizing your diet. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 1 in 10 American adults eats enough fruits and vegetables every day.
That means 90 percent of us are at greater risk for heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers.
One of the primary reasons our diets are sub-par: eating well isn't cheap. A Harvard study, adjusted for inflation, suggests it costs us about $600 per person per year to eat a healthy diet as opposed to an unhealthy one. For some of you fortunate folks, that's chump change. But when a low income family is forced to choose between radishes and rent, you can't blame them for picking the latter.
Thankfully, there are some innovative new ways for families to afford fruits and veggies. A few weeks ago, we shared the story of the farm express, a mobile market that drives around the valley offering affordable produce to lower income communities. Back in my home state of Michigan, just outside of my hometown, they're pioneering another interesting project.
Hurley Children’s Medical Center, a pediatric clinic, is located on the second floor of the Flint Farmer's Market, which is a veritable Eden in an urban desert that doesn't have many grocery stores.
The clinic is offering its patients vouchers for healthy food that can be redeemed at the market below. It’s like a prescription but for potatoes rather than pills, providing easy access to fruits and vegetables in a region where 60 percent of kids live in poverty. It's the most natural possible form of preventative medicine.
The program was implemented a couple years ago, and a new study suggests its working and could be replicated elsewhere. I would love to see something similar take off here in Arizona, where food security is still a major problem for far too many of our families.
This summer, 12 News is joining United Food Bank in an initiative called "Summer of a Million Meals," in which we hope to raise enough money to, you guessed it, provide 1 million meals to those in need in our community.
We hope you can help.
If we are what we eat let's eat better, and be better.