Thursday, April 12

Today, we discussed a little more about how different policies are instituted and created.  The majority of class we spent watching a movie created by a farmer's market in South Carolina.  The market was created because they noticed that a lot of people in their community were not consuming enough fresh fruits and vegetables.  There was also a high rate of hypertension, type II diabetes and other nutrition related diseases. A big reason for the lack of produce consumption was because they were located in a "Food Desert".  This is an area where there is no immediate access to fresh foods.  The farmer's market also gave local farmers a chance to sell some of their produce.  It was created through money acquired from the government.  What I really liked about the market was that it was located outside of the local community health center.  This gave the market easy access to a captive audience.  I also liked that people were able to get vouchers/discount for produce.  This gave people who were in need, but also unable to afford fresh produce the chance to buy some. I think a lot of people do not buy produce because of the high cost typically associated with it.  The other thing I really liked about this market was the resources they created for people.  They created a cookbook with a whole bunch of recipes using the foods at the market.  People do not typically buy pro.duce they do not know how to cook, so this is a nice way of getting people to try new foods in the comfort of their own home.