eating healthy for the underpriviledged

Globally Aware: Learning About Food Issues from Another Hemisphere, Part 4

In my life, I have access to everything I need and want and more. I often go through my day without thinking about this privilege, easily fulfilling my daily desires: moving from the food coop or farmer’s market to the drugstore to the gas station to the post office, all within minutes of my home. Having just spent a year living in South America, away from all of these conveniences, I have gained a renewed and humbling appreciation for all that I have in America. As a middle class, white American, I experience an access and abundance that is quite extraordinary. In Minneapolis, I also have the good fortune of working as a public health nutrition educator and cooking instructor. Much of my work aims to improve the access and ultimately the health of other Americans who, for a variety of reasons have less ease within the system.

 

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Getting Fresh at the Food Shelf

It wasn’t until Olivia Lara’s 16-year-old son was diagnosed with diabetes that she began to think about what she was eating. 

The tacos, juicy burgers and other fast food that served as their normal diet have now been replaced with spinach, potatoes and, on some occasions, vegetables Lara admits to knowing nothing about. 

The result: weight loss, liveliness and a desire to eat right long into the future.

“People are telling me now that I act completely different, like I have all this energy all of a sudden, “ the St. Paul resident said.  

Lara was among a healthy crowd of residents who turned up at a recent local foods event at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center in St. Paul where food shelf officials, local farmers and others were trying to encourage similar transformations. 

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