Health

Edible Flint Sows Seeds for a Healthy Future

| ChrisHardmanWriter

IT’s A BEAUTIFUL day in Flint, Michigan. The sky is clear, flowers are in bloom and the volunteer gardeners in the edible flint Demonstration Garden are hard at work. Mike Roose is watering pepper plants in the raised-bed gardens. Scott Poinsett is trimming the garden perimeter, and Garden Manager Ginny Farah is harvesting crops for neighborhood residents. By the time they are done, the community garden will look its best in preparation for the evening’s food garden tour.

The Flint Food Garden Tour, which attracted 200 paying participants in late July, is edible flint’s signature annual event. For the past nine years, garden fans have toured the city’s community, church and private gardens in celebration of the vibrant food-gardening culture in the “Vehicle City.”

“Gardening here goes back 100 years or more,” says MSU Extension Community Food Systems Educator Terry McLean. In addition to her role on edible flint’s Leadership Board, she is the liaison between edible flint and MSU Extension.

Edible flint has existed as a network with workgroups since 2009, but it wasn’t until 2014 that it became a true nonprofit with an advisory board. “We support people who want to garden, we engage interested gardeners and we inspire people to garden,” says Garden Starters Training Coordinator Micah Williams, one of edible flint’s three paid employees.

edible flint demonstration garden

The most visible result of edible flint’s work is the demonstration garden located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Begole Street across from the Hurley Medical Center. Employees from Hurley created the garden and maintained it for a few years but then asked edible flint if they would take it over. Edible flint adopted the garden in 2014.

Volunteers are the fuel that feeds the demonstration garden. Garden managers Ginny Farah and Scott Poinsett work in the garden at least three mornings a week from April to October. “Between the two of us we put in a lot of volunteer hours, but we really enjoy it,” Farah says. In addition to edible flint regulars, volunteer groups from Whole Foods and Michigan State University have lent a hand this year.

Most of the produce grown in the garden goes to people living in the surrounding neighborhoods. Last year, in spite of a prolonged drought, the demonstration garden donated 1,500 pounds of produce to community members. “Community gardens are meant to share,” says McLean. “It’s been an amazing outreach.”

On distribution days, edible flint volunteers fill plastic bags with a variety of the day’s harvest. The produce they grow includes watermelon, tomatoes, okra, squash, collard greens and herbs. Farah says she likes to introduce a new vegetable each season. This year, they are growing long beans, a specialty of Asian gardeners.

People trickle in to take the plastic bags of produce hanging on the garden fence. “We’ve gotten to know quite a few people who live in the neighborhood,” Farah says. She specifically plants okra for one neighbor, and McLean recalls the grandmother who said because of the garden, her entire family was eating healthy food that summer.

The Flint Demonstration Garden donated 1,500 pounds of produce to the community this year.”

In Flint, fresh produce can be difficult to find. In the past few years, several major grocery stores have closed their doors and left the city, and many of the city’s low-income residents don’t have a car to drive to the remaining places that do sell fruits and vegetables.

“I think that gardening empowers people. Growing your own food is an essential skill, especially in a community where there are no chain grocery stores,” Williams says.

To make food gardening affordable, edible flint sells highly subsidized garden starters kits. For $15, a beginning gardener gets 44 live plants, a bag of seed potatoes and 19 types of organic seed. The kit is designed to feed a family of four with a 1,500-square-foot garden. “It allows just about anybody the ability to garden,” McLean says.

The program also offers low-cost soil testing, tilling and compost delivery. According to Williams, in 2017 edible flint sold 330 kits, delivered 377 yards of compost, tilled 27 gardens and distributed 58 water filters.

To ensure success in urban food gardening, edible flint runs an 11-week garden starters class. Drawing on experts in the community, the class covers soil science, pest management, vegetable and fruit production and seed starting, among other topics. The class also includes an introduction to land access and food accessibility in Flint. “Every week has a new class topic and a new teacher,” Williams says.

Key partnerships with the Ruth Mott Foundation, MSU Extension, the Michigan Food and Farming Systems and the Flint Farmers’ Market have contributed to edible flint’s growth. Part of edible flint’s strategic plan is to increase commercial food production and provide support for food entrepreneurs in the city and its surroundings. For a city with 42% of its population living below the poverty level, economic opportunities, food sovereignty and increased access to healthy food are just what the community needs.

Published in edibleWOW Magazine | Photos by Chris Stranad

How Flint is Using Good Food to Combat Lead Poisoning

| ChrisHardmanWriter

WHEN NEWS OF the Flint water crisis went viral in January, water donations and pledges of support came from around the world, and suddenly a community that was long ignored by the outside world was the subject of national news reports. The story was alarming: hundreds of people had been exposed to lead simply by using the water in their homes.

When the city of Flint began using water from the Flint River in April 2014 and forwent treating it for corrosion, the move resulted in corroded pipes, lead in the public water supply, and a public health crisis. Ingesting lead is dangerous for anyone, but it is especially damaging to children and pregnant women, with long-term effects including behavioral, learning, and hearing problems, delayed fetus growth, and harm to the brain, kidneys, and other essential organs.

Research shows, however, that good nutrition can help mitigate the impact on children with elevated lead levels. Like calcium, lead is stored in the bones, and it can remain there—eventually leaking out into the bloodstream, continuing the exposure internally—for months or years after the external exposure stops. Fortunately, foods low in fat and high in vitamin C and iron combat lead poisoning by decreasing the metal’s absorption by the body. Calcium also decreases lead’s negative impacts by helping prevent it from leaving the bones.

With that in mind, members of Flint’s food community doubled their efforts to get healthy food into the homes of Flint residents.

The hub of Flint’s food community is the year-round Flint farmers’ market, an indoor bazar conveniently located across the street from the MTA bus terminal. While the market has long purveyed high-quality fruits and vegetables and offered cooking demos, exercise classes, and health programs, it took on a new mission earlier this year: getting foods that combat lead poisoning into the homes of Flint residents.

Along with the Hurley Wellness Center and Michigan State University Extension, the market created a series of cooking classes that teach participants to prepare meals with the lead-fighting foods.

It just happens that most of the foods that help with lead exposure are just your basic healthy foods,” says Chef Sean Gartland, market cooking class lead and culinary director of Flint Food Works, an incubator program also at the market.

Gartland rotates teaching duties with Hurley dietitians and MSU educators. All of the classes are free of charge, and each participant goes home with a bag of produce, a nutrition guide, and recipes designed to reduce the effects of lead exposure.

One of Gartland’s recent classes featured a brown rice dish with grilled chicken, kale, and black beans. “We try to drive home why you would add [those ingredients] to a recipe for flavor and also for the effect of mitigating lead in your body,” Gartland says. Since June of this year, 258 people have attended 24 of these special cooking classes in the farmers’ market demonstration kitchen.

Various other community groups have joined the lead-fighting effort as well. Last summer, the market hosted a program sponsored by the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) and the non-profit FlintNOW. On the last day of school, 8,000 Flint public school children received “nutrition backpacks” containing a mini basketball, information about nutrition and lead, and three $5 gift certificates to the Flint farmers’ market. Additional funding from the Detroit Pistons matched each $5 gift certificate with another $5—bringing the total to $30 worth of free food.

It’s clear that families have bought more produce because these incentives. Gartland says $35,000 worth of NBPA gift certificates have been redeemed, which translates to 7,000 individual gift certificates for 2,333 kids. An additional $27,500 worth of Pistons gift certificates have been cashed in as well.

The national non-profit Fair Food Network (FFN), another organization with a track record in Flint, has also stepped up its offerings to help combat lead poisoning through diet.

In 2011, the FFN introduced the Double Up Food Bucks program, which enabled low-income Flint residents receiving SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) to double their healthy food budget. If a shopper spends $20 in SNAP benefits on produce at the grocery store or farmers’ market, for example, they earn another $20 in food bucks to spend on more fruits and vegetables.

“We were already in Flint doing work in farmers’ markets and grocery stores when we started hearing about the exposure that families and kids had to lead,” says FFN’s President and CEO Oran Hesterman. “Medical experts [told] us one of the only ways they know to mitigate the long-term impacts of lead exposure is to make sure that those who have had that exposure have a high nutritional level of iron and calcium.”

To build the program’s capacity to fight lead poisoning, Fair Food expanded to include milk as an eligible item and moved the program beyond the farmers’ market and a few grocery stores to additional retail outlets that sell fresh produce. (Because neither the farmers’ market vendors nor the grocery store partners offer produce grown in the city or affected areas, lead-contaminated produce is not a concern.)

Additionally, FFN hired a company called Epic Technology Solutions to develop the technology needed for shoppers to seamlessly go from venue to venue spending and earning food bucks.

Flint resident Liberty Bell uses Double Up Food Bucks at both the farmers’ market and the grocery store. “Buy one and get double back, how can you beat that?” she asks. “That extra $20 or $40 in your pocket is awesome.” She says the extra money helps to provide a healthier lifestyle for her and her young son.

Because the original Double Up program was underutilized—only 3,000 of 40,000 eligible people took advantage of it in 2015—FFN launched a targeted advertising campaign using billboards, bus signs, radio and TV commercials, and ads on social media. So far, the results have been positive. Since then, FFN reports that 4,000 people have used the program since June 2016, a 76 percent increase in enrollment compared to the same time period last year.

It takes a lot of people to get a buzz going in a community about a program like this,” Hesterman says. “I’m not sure what it’s going to take to make [Double Up] a daily habit, but that is our goal.”

The Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, which works on increasing access to healthy food in 22 Michigan counties, including Genesse County, where Flint is located, has also gotten involved. In partnership with the Michigan Department of Public Health, the food bank operates a mobile food pantry that hauls truckloads of healthy food to Flint families.

Since March, the “Flint Nutrition Mobile Pantry,” which is supported by a $28 million state appropriation, has brought tuna, potatoes, baked beans, cereal, apples, peppers, and tomatoes to religious institutions and neighborhood centers throughout Flint. This past September, the mobile pantry made 24 stops in 20 days.

“I think this is a wonderful example of neighbor helping neighbor to provide healthy food to families to mitigate the impact of lead,” says William Kerr, president of the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, in a statement.

Kerr promised that the Food Bank will stick with Flint over the next 10 to 15 years to work through the after effects of lead exposure to the city’s children.

Now, as the Flint water crisis fades from the political spotlight and offers of help dwindle, members of Flint’s food community continue helping families get the good food they need—now more than ever.

Published on CivilEats by Chris Hardman

Philadelphia Cuts Salt in Chinese Take-Out

| ChrisHardmanWriter

AS FOLKS DIG into Chinese fare to celebrate the Lunar New Year, they might be surprised to hear that they’re getting an extra helping of sodium. Popular main dishes such as General Tso’s Chicken can contain as much as 2,325 mg of sodium in one serving, 25 mg more than the amount FDA recommends eating in an entire day.

In 2012, a group of Philadelphia health advocates noted that their city has more than 400 Chinese take-out-only restaurants—more than all the city’s fast food joints combined. They formed the Philadelphia Healthy Chinese Take-out Initiative, with the goal of reducing the amount of sodium in Chinese take-out by 10 to 15 percent.

Overconsumption of sodium is a nationwide problem. The average American eats nearly 3,500 milligrams of a day, or 15 percent more than the FDA recommends. The recommendation is even lower for people with hypertension, for African Americans, and for middle-aged and older adults.

The Philadelphia initiative targeted low-income neighborhoods where predominantly people of color reside and Chinese take-out is commonly eaten. “In Philly, we have such high rates of hypertension, particularly among African Americans and Hispanics,” says Jennifer Aquilante of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH).

Sodium is known to raise human blood pressure and half of the city’s African Americans and nearly a third of its Hispanics suffer from hypertension (or high blood pressure), which can lead to heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and kidney problems.

Launched in 2010 by the PDPH—with funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—Get Healthy Philly also promotes healthy foods, smoke-free environments, and works to reduce youth smoking rates.

For the initiative, staff from the PDPH Get Healthy Philly program, Temple University’s Center for Asian Health, the Asian Community Health Coalition, and the Greater Philadelphia Chinese Restaurant Association worked with 300 Chinese takeout restaurants. Not only did they target table salt, the most obvious source of sodium in our diets, but they also turned an eye toward processed foods, canned sauces, and prepared mixes.

First, they asked restaurant owners two important questions: Did they realize that too much sodium contributed to health problems? And, second, were they willing to make changes? Most of the restaurant owners answered yes and requested help in preparing and marketing lower-sodium meals. Get Healthy Philly brought in Professor Shirley Cheng of New York’s Culinary Institute of America, to conduct classes and provide recipes for lower-sodium Chinese cooking.

Professor Cheng gave chefs from over 200 restaurants free cooking training in late 2012 and early 2013. She recommended included using ginger, garlic, scallions, and lemon to add flavor instead of table salt, and also using lower sodium ingredients and modifying recipes. In one example, Cheng recommended a modified sauce recipe for shrimp and broccoli that reduced the sodium from 2,400 mg to 1,300 mg. Her chicken lo mein sauce reduced sodium from 2,500 mg per order to 1,600 mg.

Restaurant owners received a certificate of participation, a door decal, a toolkit, posters about sodium, and recipes for the most popular menu items.

“Chinese food in general is high in sodium because of the sauces,” Aquilante says. “We ask them to use about half as much sauce as they normally do.” In addition to using less sauce, the Get Healthy Philly program also asked the restaurants to give out soy sauce packets only when asked.

Tongshe Lu, owner of Great Taste Chinese Food, completed his training in 2012. “It’s a great program for Chinese take out restaurants,” he says.

To measure the program’s progress, Temple University Professor Grace X. Ma conducted compliance checks at six, 16, and 24 months post training. She found that the sodium content in the three most popular dishes dropped consistently: 13 percent in General Tso’s chicken, 30 percent in chicken lo mein, and 34 percent in shrimp and broccoli.

“I’ve reduced half [the] sodium after the training,” says restaurant owner Tianxing Chen.  “It helps to make everybody healthy in the community.”

How did the customers respond to the change? Get Healthy Philly surveyed over 300 customers from nine restaurants after the shift. When asked if they would order the dishes they’d eaten again, 91-97 percent of the customers said yes.

However, initiatives like this one in Philly show that sodium is an acquired taste, so over time people can adapt to less sodium in their food. “We know from research that a 20 percent reduction in sodium isn’t that noticeable,” says Aquilante.

Partnerships between the Chinese and African American communities have been key to making the Philadelphia Healthy Chinese Take-out Initiative possible. In 2015, PDPHbegan a new outreach program with 80 pastors from African American churches. The pastors learned about the Chinese take-out program and other health issues. In turn, the pastors have begun educating their congregations.

Two years after training, 185 Chinese take-out-only restaurants were still participating in the program.

The success in Philadelphia is serving as a model for other cities looking to improve their residents’ health. In 2015 the Advocate Heart Institute and the Chicago Department of Public Health worked with four Chicago restaurants that serve South Asian fare to reduce sodium levels in their food.

“Several other cities have inquired about our program and replicated it in their own way,” says Aquilante. “Since our initiative is so comprehensive, I think cities can pull out pieces that they want to focus on.”

Published on CivilEats by Chris Hardman

 

Salad Greens Keep Growing in Your Kitchen

| ChrisHardmanWriter

SALAD GREENS HAVE been getting a bad wrap in the news lately. Not only are pre-cut greens notoriously risky from a food safety perspective (Since the 2006 E. coli outbreak, all bagged lettuce now gets triple washed, but a 2010 Consumer Reports study says that spinach and other greens still harbor dangerous bacteria), but they also requireconsiderably more water and other resources than head lettuce. Worst of all: A great deal of it goes to waste. According to the Washington Post, as much as 1 billion poundsgo to waste every year.

For all these reasons, Christopher Washington, James Livengood, and Tony Gibbons arere-thinking salad greens. Their New York-based startup Radicle Farm Company is changing the way this American staple is grown, harvested, and delivered, and challenging assumptions about the way the 5 billion dollar bagged salad industry works.

The company’s name is a play on words. Spelled a different way the word suggests change and upheaval. “Ultimately were are really interested in fundamentally changing the way people think of salad greens,” says Gibbons, who co-founded the company with Livengood and Washington in 2014.
Their product is a living salad, sold with roots intact, designed for consumers to harvest themselves when they’re ready.

Unlike pre-cut greens, which can wilt and lose their flavor, Radicle’s greens continue to grow during transport, on the grocery shelf and in the consumer’s kitchen.

If watered and stored on the kitchen counter, they can last up to two weeks.“People are focused on delaying decay of the product. We’re focused on extending the life of plants,” says Washington.

Each package of greens is grown in a greenhouse in Utica, New York or Newark, New Jersey, in a compostable soil mix in a recyclable tray. Although the growing method and soil mixture are a trade secret, Washington describes their process as a mix between hydroponics and traditional agriculture. The plan is to become certified organic in the future. Growing indoors eliminates the need for any pesticides, and a targeted irrigation system relies on less water.

Radicle Farm Co. also takes a regional approach to food distribution, meaning it limits their sales radius to 400 miles. Gibbons estimates that Radicle grows about 1,500 pounds of produce each week. Their clients include 30 Whole Food stores, 20 New York grocery stores, nearby Sodexo food service accounts, Farmigo, the Food Emporium, Fresh Direct delivery service, and several high–end restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Locanda Verde in Manhattan. In addition to the founders, the company employs seven other people.

Radicle’s mixes include Baby Romaine with green and red leaves and Shanghai Spinach with tatsoi and komatsuna. The average retail pricefor a 4.5-ounce living Radicle salad is$3.99, compared to most bagged grocery store salad mix, which costs around $2.99.“We’re trying to level the playing field as far as democracy of food,” Washington says, “Everyone should be able to have this universal right of food.”

All three co-founders have experience with hydroponic farming. Gibbons co-foundedGarden State Urban Farms, one of the first hydroponic farms in urban New Jersey. AndWashington co-founded three farms using both traditional and hydroponic growing techniques in Africa and the U.S.

The three men met at a dinner party where they bonded over a shared concern for the growing quantity of food waste in the world.

The statistics are overwhelming. In 2013 alone, Americans wasted more than 37 million tons of food, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Sadly, only five percent of that waste was diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted.

Washington explains that bagged salad greens are harvested by large combines that gobble up everything in their path including frogs and other small wildlife. The animal detritus combined with high amounts of pesticide use created the need to “triple-wash” salad greens before they go to market.

Radicle Farm saves money by eliminating the complicated washing and bagging process. “We can grow a lot of food in a very small space, and we can lower the price of the food because we’re not going through that process,” says Washington.

“Our biggest challenge overall is really the fact that it is a new product and that there isn’t an infrastructure out there that knows how to handle boxes of [living] lettuce,” saysGibbons.

But for now, he feels that this experiment in “in-home agriculture” is worth the effort. “It’s always going to be hard to compete with massive fields in California,” Gibbons adds.“But we think our quality is on a different level.”

Published on CivilEats by Chris Hardman

 

Detroit Company Creates Fresh Food Pit Stops

| ChrisHardmanWriter

IF YOU’RE ON THE HUNT for a fresh, ready-to-eat meal in Detroit, the best place to find it just might surprise you. Take the Sunoco station on Fort Street or the Victory Liquor and Food store on Warren Avenue. Amidst the Hot Cheetos and snack-sized Chips Ahoy cookies, you’ll find a cooler stocked with everything from fresh fruit and yogurt parfaits and spicy feta and hummus wraps to Thai chicken salads made with fresh, green lettuce—not the wilted iceberg you might expect.

The company behind the food might not be what you’d expect either. Fresh Corner Cafe (FCC) is a mission driven food and delivery service with the goal of making healthy food accessible to all Detroiters. To do this, they’ve turned to a most unlikely distribution center—neighborhood convenience stores.

For years, Detroit has been labeled a “food desert,” but that term is misleading. “It’s not that we don’t have grocery stores,” explains Detroit native and FCC co-founder Val Waller. “It’s that people have issues getting to them.”

According to a 2011 report from Data Driven Detroit, there are more than 115 grocery stores within Detroit’s city limits. In the years since that report was published, several high-profile grocery stores have opened stores in the city—including Whole Foods in June 2013 and Meijer in July 2013. But Detroit encompasses 138 square miles, the public transportation is undependable and some neighborhoods are simply not safe for walking. As a result, many Detroiters choose food from the closest of the more than 1,000 corner stores in the city.

“We’re trying to change the idea of what can be available in these spaces,” Waller explains. Initially FCC co-owner Noam Kimelman had to convince the shop owners that his products would sell. But Kimelman and Waller worked hard to build relationships with store owners and won over customers by providing free samples.

The idea for Fresh Corner Cafe came to Kimelman while he was studying at the University of Michigan. While working on his Masters of Health Management and Public Policy, he and his classmates came up with an idea for getting healthier food into urban areas. His first business, Get Fresh Detroit, launched in 2010 and offered for sale packets of food with fresh ingredients to make soup or stir fry. His goal was to make a gas station or convenience store a one-stop shop for fresh food ingredients. Kimelman soon learned that his customers were more interested in ready-to -eat meals, so he changed his business plan to offer pre-made meals.IMG_7849_edited-1

Kimelman recruited Waller, another U of M graduate, to join the company in 2011. Her degree in sociology and work experience in her family’s Detroit pizzeria have fueled her passion for creating an equitable local foodshed. She says access to good food should not be contingent on where someone lives.

Unlike most government interventions, says the Fresh Corner Café website, which “rely on big box retail to address healthy food access and obesity” the company’s goal is to “reduce barriers and uplift existing assets to provide a highly replicable and scalable solution with low capital requirements.”

Targeting convenience stores is an effective way to reach low-income shoppers. Fresh Corner Cafe sells to stores that are all certified to accept food assistance cards, also called Bridge cards. According to Data Driven Detroit, residents of Detroit spend twice as much of their Bridge card money at convenience stores as compared to the rest of Michigan‘s residents.

Fresh Corner Cafe works at a community level. They source fruit from Peaches and Greens, a locally owned produce market, and the wraps and salads come from Lunchtime Detroit, a sandwich shop. The staff lives locally and the drivers come from the communities to which they deliver. FCC delivers meals to 27 locations—including cafes, gas stations, and pharmacies—three times a week.

Currently the sales from the convenience stores do not generate enough revenue to turn a profit, so in order to keep the company sustainable, FCC expanded by placing their own self-serve to-go cafes in several Detroit workplaces. The company provides a fully-stocked refrigerator with a self-pay station and they stock and clean the shelves and handle all financial transactions. These workplace cafes makes it convenient for busy professionals to eat healthy and for businesses to provide fresh food to their employees.

So far, these strategies appear to be working. In August, Kimelman was recognized with a young entrepreneur SCORE award for pioneering the model and the company now employs six people.

Last year FCC sold some 30,000 meals bringing in $200,000 worth of revenue. Those numbers will continue to grow as FCC expands to more stores and offices. According to Waller, FCC plans to open their own certified kitchen, which will give them more control over ingredients and eventually allow them to introduce an organic line. “It is a social injustice for people to not have access to fresh food,” she says. “Detroiters are so used to not having things that they don’t even know how to ask for them.”

Published on Civil Eats by

 

FarmRaiser Takes Fundraising Local

| ChrisHardmanWriter

WHEN MARK ABBOTT’S SON  was in fourth grade, his local elementary school recruited students and their families to participate in a fundraiser for the school. After successfully selling cookie dough and candy to friends and family, Abbott’s son remarked that he had just sold $400 worth of things the family would never eat at home. “It’s too bad we couldn’t try something healthy like apples,” said his son.

That suggestion resonated with Abbott, so he had an idea. Instead of candy and chips from national suppliers, why not make it possible for students to sell healthy food from local farmers, beekeepers, and food artisans? He started a pilot program in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. And the following year, in 2013, FarmRaiser ran 30 fundraising campaigns for schools in Michigan and Washington State.

Fundraising is a necessary evil for our nation’s schools. Budget cuts from federal and state sources have left most schools financially needy. In a 2007 survey conducted by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, 94 percent of principals–representing a wide range of school districts across the country–reported that they had held fundraisers.

Often run by parent volunteers, these fundraisers generate money to pay for everything from field trips, to playground equipment, school supplies, and new technology. Schools in both low-income and high-income areas report the need to fundraise. At least 35 states provided less funding per student for the 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession hit. Fourteen of these states have cut the amount they give for each student by more than 10 percent.

Fundraising is big business. Student salesmen generate $1.4 billion a year peddling packaged food, magazines, and gifts, according to the Association of Fund-Raising Distributors and Suppliers. But as schools are challenged to create a healthier environment for their students, parents and teachers alike question sending kids out into the community to hawk high-fat, high-salt cookie dough and candy bars. “I want to support the schools, but I don’t want to buy the stuff full of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils,” says Therese Povolo of Champion Hill Farm in Beulah, Michigan. She and her husband are beekeepers who have sold honey through FarmRaiser since last fall. The first school that used their products was only half a mile away from their home.

Fundraising is also one more way to fill students’ lives with candy and processed food. Children are especially vulnerable to big food marketing and having schools train them to be salespeople for high-calorie, low-nutrient foods seems counterintuitive. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, diet related illnesses such type 2 diabetes are on the rise. Their research shows that childhood obesity has doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past three decades.

Similar to traditional catalogue-based fundraising programs, FarmRaiser customers order products from a set list of vendors. But FarmRaiser campaigns avoid cookies and desserts, opting instead for local fruits and vegetables and locally sourced honey, pasta, granola, spice mixes, artisan breads, jam, etc. Schools can also collect money from cash donations made online.

Most of FarmRaiser’s vendors are within 30 miles of the school and if the school has a personal connection to a farm or food artisan, FarmRaiser will add them to their product list. “We love to sell products that directly connect back to the students at the school,” says says FarmRaiser’s campaign manager Christina Carson. For example Leelanau Montessori in Suttons Bay, Michigan, includes dried cherries in their fundraiser from Cherry Bay Orchards, one student’s family farm.

FarmRaiser vendors also use the campaigns as marketing tools. It provides a chance to reach new customers at a time of the year when farmers’ market crowds in Michigan are dwindling. “We have a big tourist market in the summer and when that falls off, it’s nice to get other people aware of our product,” says Povolo.

Carson says that FarmRaiser’s financial model is competitive with other types of food-based fundraising, which offer schools anywhere from 20-50 percent of the profit. In this case, the school ends up with a flat 45 percent of the amount sold, FarmRaiser takes a 10 percent fee, and the rest goes to local businesses.

FarmRaiser also helps schools raise money through a program they call The Community Basket. Here’s how it works: The school accepts cash donations in the name of a local food bank. The school keeps 50 percent and the rest of the money is used to buy local food for the food bank. Typically the students choose the charity and then have a chance to deliver the donation. “[It’s] a great way for people to share the bounty of the fundraiser with people who are in need,” says Carson.

As the need for fundraising grows, so does the need for fundraising companies working for more than just their own bottom line. FarmRaiser plans to increase their campaigns throughout Michigan and the Seattle area and to move into other states in the coming years.

“Eighty percent of households purchase something from a fundraiser every year,” says Carson. If they were selling, say, local apples instead of candy, she adds, “you’d have 80 percent of people purchasing local food.” The impact on the local farm economy could be huge.

Published on Civil Eats by

 

Vitamin Angels Save Lives

| ChrisHardmanWriter

ONCE IN A WHILE a simple solution comes along to a complicated problem, and since 1994 the non-profit organization Vitamin Angels has been working on a complicated problem. Every year an estimated 190 million children under five suffer from vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which can cause death and blindness. The lack of Vitamin A and other essential micronutrients in the diets’ of children and pregnant women throughout the world prevents proper physical and brain development robbing children of the tools they need to succeed in life.

The solution is a worldwide campaign to distribute vitamins and other nutritional supplements to at-risk populations. Howard B. Schiffer founded Vitamin Angels after a relief worker told him that 2 capsules of high dose vitamin A could prevent children from going blind and save lives. He was shocked. He had been selling vitamins for 14 years and had never realized that. Schiffer asked for clarification that two capsules a day can prevent a child from going blind and save lives. “No,” was the answer. “2 capsules a year.”

Using his contacts in the health food industry, Schiffer created a non-profit named Vitamin Angels to solicit donations. Then he found charitable and government organizations—already working in country on health issues—and asked if he could use their infrastructure to distribute the vitamins. Today Schiffer works in rural areas such as Southern Belize, with organizations like Belize’s Ministry of Health to distribute vitamins to women and children living in some of the world’s most remote areas. In 2010 alone, Vitamin Angels helped more than 20 million children in 40 countries around the globe.

The human body needs a mixture of minerals to grow and develop properly. Health professionals have identified 5 essential micronutrients: vitamin D for survival and sight; iodine for brain development; iron for brain and motor development; zinc to fight infections and diarrhea; and folate for fetal development. In 2010 Vitamin Angels and their partner agencies delivered 120,000,000 doses of essential micronutrients to more than 300,000 at-risk children and mothers in 26 countries, including the United States.

Malnutrition is a debilitating product of poverty. The poorest people in the world do not eat enough of nutrient-rich foods such as milk, eggs, meat, fish and fruits and vegetables. In the developed world, most of the staple household foods such as milk, sugar, cereals, oils and noodles are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals and have been for the past 50 years. But in developing nations, these foods are not fortified and are out of reach financially for large segments of the population. “Most people don’t know that chronic malnutrition is the underlying cause of death for more children than AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis,” says Vitamin Angels president Howard B. Schiffer. “The amazing thing is, malnutrition is solvable. We don’t need to do any research. We don’t have to try to find a cure. Just getting nutrients, especially vitamin A, out to children is the lowest cost, highest impact intervention you can provide.”

Published in Americas magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Medicinal Weeds of the Maya

| ChrisHardmanWriter

WORKING WITH the Highland Maya in Chiapas, Mexico, University of Georgia researcher John R. Stepp has documented that weeds are a more valuable source of medicine than plants found deep in the forest. Stepp spent 9 months tracking medicinal plant use of 208 people in 6 communities. He found that the majority of medicines used were made from weeds found close by homes and villages.

The Maya are well known for their use of medicinal plants, and in recent years scientists from around the world have tapped into their knowledge in search of cures for cancer, AIDS, and other devastating diseases. But very little research has been done on the medicinal value of weeds — those pesky invasive species that quickly take over disturbed habitat near homes and other cleared areas. According to Stepp, weeds are a logical choice for medicinal use, “Weeds are readily available. You know that they are going to be there when you go looking for them. If you’re sick, you don’t want to travel a long ways to find a plant.”

Using weeds found close to home eliminates the need to store plants, saving time and effort. “Some of the more volatile compounds, if you dry them, lose their strength. So it’s much better from a treatment point of view to go out and get fresh material,” Stepp says. In contrast to other Indian groups throughout Latin America who dry and store plants, the Highland Maya rely almost exclusively on fresh material.

There are biochemical reasons why weeds make good medicine as well. Most plants manufacture compounds for defense against herbivores and insects. A lot of these compounds have medicinal properties — in small doses they are medicinal, in large doses they are toxic. Weeds tend to produce more compounds than plants living in the forest, who use structural defenses like thick bark and tannins to protect against browsing. Because most weeds only live for a short period of time, they can’t afford to expend the energy required to develop structural defenses. Developing chemical defenses is much more economical.

Stepp found that the majority of medicinal weeds were used for gastrointestinal diseases and respiratory illnesses, two conditions that account for 80% of health problems. One of the most frequently used weeds is the species Verbena litoralis. Named Yakan kulub wamal in Maya (grasshopper leg herb), this weed provides a potent cure for diarrhea. The Mexican sunflower, Tithonia diversifolia, is used to treat abdominal pain and diarrhea.

The Highland Maya have lived in the Chiapas region of Mexico for more than one thousand years. As a result, they have accumulated a vast understanding of medicinal flora that has been passed down through oral traditions to today’s population of 800,000 people. By the age of 5, children can name 100 plants, and adults can name nearly 600. This widespread knowledge has minimized the need for specialized healers. Unless they have a very serious illness or a condition with a supernatural element — like a curse —  most people simply go out in the backyard and treat themselves.

Stepp says his study contrasts with the romantic image of native people gathering secret plants deep in the rainforest. “The truth is more exotic,” he explains. “I think the fact that people do have such a widespread knowledge and that they’re living on top of their pharmacy is more exotic than trekking off into the jungle.”

Published in Americas Magazine by Chris Hardman

Low-tech Prescription for Chagas

| ChrisHardmanWriter

CHAGAS DISEASE is a serious and sometimes deadly infection that affects 16-18 million people throughout the Americas. What if there were a simple and inexpensive way to prevent transmission? Rockefeller University and Columbia University Professor Joel E. Cohen and Ricardo Gürtler from the University of Buenos Aires say there is, and they have the scientific data to prove it. Cohen and Gürtler are combining their expertise in applied mathematics and tropical infectious diseases to develop mathematical models to solve health problems.

According to the World Health Organization, Chagas disease is endemic to 21 countries in the Americas, where 100 million people are at risk of contracting the disease. The infection is life-long and in its most severe form can lead to heart failure. Humans get the disease from a parasite named Trypanosoma cruzi. The parasite is transmitted to humans through an infected blood transfusion or through the feces of the blood-sucking reduvid bug, locally known as “kissing” bugs, “cone-nosed” bugs, vinchuca, or barbeiro

Cohen and Gürtler set out to learn how the parasite spreads in rural households. They created a mathematical model based on a decade of data from three rural villages in Northwest Argentina. The first model of its kind, it processes data from household populations of bugs, parasites and their relationship to the numbers of humans, chickens, and dogs living within a household.

The results show that transmission follows a seasonal pattern based on what animals live in the house at what time. The cycle begins in the spring when humans, dogs, and chickens all sleep inside together — a safeguard against chicken theft or predation. The bugs also live inside and they feast on the chickens finding them to be an ideal source of a blood meal. Although chickens can’t be infected with the parasite, their presence in the household increases the bug population that peaks in the summer when the chickens are usually moved outside. The bugs then turn to the dogs as their secondary choice for a blood meal. Not only are the dogs much more infectious than humans, but they are also twice as likely to be chosen for a meal as humans.

Based on this data, Cohen and Gürtler’s mathematical model predicts that letting dogs sleep outside could almost eliminate the transmission of infection —  their official recommendation is to move both dogs and chickens to an outbuilding and keep them out of the bedroom.

“It is important to emphasize that the high technology approach to the control of infectious disease has left this disease behind,” Cohen says. “The problem is that the people who have [Chagas] are poor. There is very little prospect of a pharmaceutical company recouping the research costs required to save the 16 to 20 million people who are infected with this disease. What our work does is give the people who are affected the possibility of improving their health by their own efforts.”

A simple solution such as keeping animals out of the sleeping area is practical for all income levels.  “The ingredient here is knowledge rather than high technology.”

Cohen and Gürtler think a similar approach could help understand how other diseases, such as leishmaniasis and malaria, are related to the presence of animals in the household. They believe that the mathematical model will lead to other low-tech solutions for common health problems found in rural areas.

“We think that there are a lot of problems in developing countries where solutions don’t have to come from high-tech or from outside,” Cohen says. “I do think there is a place for the ecological approach for the prevention of disease.”

—Chris Hardman

Published in Americas magazine

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