Barriers to Eating Healthy Include More Than Just Access

Consumption of fresh produce is essential to healthy living, yet for many, access to fresh produce is inaccessible due to its high price tag. Furthermore, people often shy away from purchasing produce due to the unknown of how to prepare it. Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank has made it their priority to provide their clients with access to fresh fruits and vegetable. Various pantries throughout the Food Bank’s 11 county service area receive produce from the Food Bank to then give to people in need. In addition to pantry distribution, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank provides fresh fruits and vegetables directly to clients through our Produce to People large-scale distribution program. Produce to People really helps the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank reach people in the community and engage them in our services! Families can come to the monthly Produce to People events and leave the distribution with as much as 30-40 pounds of fresh produce.

       A Produce to People distribution

Even though access to these various fresh foods is important, it is only the first step to a healthy individual. Imagine going to the grocery store to purchase your daily groceries. Just having the sweet and delicious butternut squash or piles of collard greens in your cart, does not help your health. There are many steps between you consuming those essential vitamins and nutrients, including planning dishes and knowing how to prepare and cook with produce and other ingredients!

       
As the Nutrition Educator, I help overcome this struggle for our clients in two specific ways: cooking demonstrations and creation and distribution of various nutrition publications. In a typical week, I will conduct three to four cooking demonstrations for various clients throughout Allegheny County. Many sites include community centers, after-school programs, local pantries, and crisis shelters. During these cooking demonstrations both adults and kids get the opportunity to try a new food or a new cooking method with foods they receive in their pantries, Produce to People events or at the store. In addition, at the cooking demonstrations we also demo Recipe Rainbow, a program made by the food bank that populates recipes after you select the ingredients that you currently have on hand. This tool has really helped clients understand how to utilize all of the food that they buy or are given.

Recipe Rainbow is a great tool to find recipes using ingredients you have in your pantry! 

When I am not out conducting a cooking demonstration, I create various nutrition publications that clients can use to cook the produce they receive, in the comforts of their own home. There are two main publications that we produce. First, we create a monthly Cooking Activity Newsletter (CAN) that is distributed to our various agencies who receive food from the food bank, so they can then educate their clients. This newsletter provides clients with helpful, easy to follow recipes that they can cook at home with the food that is provided to them! Another publication that I help to create and distribute are recipe cards. These full color recipe cards feature healthy, easy to cook dishes and are simple to follow with step-by-step pictures and instructions to help anyone cook like a professional!

Michelle (left) and Justine (right) serve at the GPCFB this year!