Fresh Food

We all know we are supposed to eat healthy. We know we need to eat our vegetables and that "an apple a day, keeps the doctor away". For some reason, it is often hard to eat healthy. Why is that? I think part of it is because we live in a world where we want (and often get) instant gratification. We want food and we want it now! The quickest things to grab are often not the healthiest. At the food banks, it is hard to keep fresh produce around. There are always canned and frozen fruits and vegetables that will keep but I always wonder just what is in there that allows them to keep for so long. Just a thought. The SPFB has come up with a few ideas that help get fresh produce into the food boxes we hand out.

For those of you who don't know, the SPFB has a farm where they grow various kinds of fruit and vegetables and an apple orchard. The apple orchard was originally funded in 1994 and by 1997 around 25,000 pounds of fresh apples were being distributed through the food bank to their clients. The SPFB also has a program called "Produce for the Plains"; produce, which would otherwise goes to waste, is donated by local wholesalers to the SPFB for weekly distribution at three City of Lubbock Community Centers.

Why is getting fresh produce distributed even important? There are many reasons but I won't bore you with all of them (not today anyways). I do want to briefly mention an article I read yesterday titled, "The Healthiest Foods On Earth". The author wrote about various societies that have been known for healthy lifestyles and how each diet differed except for one thing, "all these healthy diets have in common the fact that they are absent foods with bar codes". They can be high in fat, low in fat, high in carbohydrates, low in carbohydrates, high in protein, low in protein -- they simply are full of foods that are free from bar codes and full of natural vitamins and antioxidants. It seems so simple. Yet, it is so hard sometimes. So I applaud the the SPFB in their constant (and successful) efforts to not only feed the hungry, but to feed them well.