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Rebeca Gonzalez grew up consuming artichokes from her grandmother’s farm within the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala. But for years after emigrating to the U.S., she didn’t feed them to her personal youngsters as a result of the spiky, fibrous greens had been too costly on this facet of the border.
When she ready meals at her household’s dwelling in Garden Grove, Calif., Gonzalez would additionally omit avocados, a staple of Mexican delicacies that’s typically expensive right here.
“I saw the prices and I said, ‘No, never mind,’” stated Gonzalez, a 47-year-old youngster care employee who receives about $500 a month in meals stamps.
But these objects are not out of attain for her household. Since enrolling final 12 months in a program that rewards meals stamp beneficiaries for purchasing extra recent produce, Gonzalez has commonly crammed her purchasing cart with the fruit and veggies of her childhood — not solely avocados and artichokes, however pomegranates, varied varieties of squash and extra.
Participation in this system, known as “Más Fresco,” or “More Fresh” in English, provides Gonzalez an extra $40 a month to spend on produce, permitting her to broaden the palates of her three U.S.-born kids. “The good thing is my family likes to try the new vegetables,” she stated. “Now I can buy them because I have the extra money.”
The University of California-San Diego is administering Más Fresco and finding out its outcomes with a $three.four million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has funded similar efforts in different states, together with Illinois, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Mexico. The dollars invested in these states have been geared toward inducing meals stamp recipients to purchase extra produce at farmers markets or at cellular markets that go to low-income neighborhoods.
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Más Fresco is open to Southern Californians in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties who’re enrolled within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — the official title for meals stamp advantages.
The aim of the four-year program, like that of its counterparts in different states, is to enhance diets and general well being by making recent produce extra reasonably priced.
“We know food insecurity and, unfortunately, chronic disease go hand in hand,” stated Joe Prickitt, a UC-San Diego dietitian who’s senior director of Más Fresco. “For SNAP participants, there’s a real cost barrier to buying fruits and vegetables. They say they’re just too expensive.”
Rebeca Gonzalez holds a replica of her grocery receipt and her Northgate González loyalty card. The loyalty card tracks her purchases and redemptions by way of Más Fresco, a program that urges meals stamp recipients to purchase produce. (Courtney Perkes for KHN)
Since Más Fresco started in February 2017, it has enrolled 1,153 individuals, who obtain a median of $329 a month in meals stamps and usually stay in households of 5 or 6 folks. Ninety p.c of them are Latinos, however adults from any ethnic background can be a part of offered they’re prepared to buy at a collaborating Northgate González Market – an Anaheim, Calif.-based Latino grocery chain that’s Más Fresco’s retail companion.
For each greenback price of meals stamps enrollees spend on recent produce in a given month, they obtain a one-to-one match, as much as $10, $20 or $40, which they’ll spend solely on extra fruit and veggies. The UC-San Diego researchers who’re finding out this system diversified the utmost reward quantities and assigned them randomly to individuals to assist decide the optimum greenback stage for altering folks’s dietary habits.
The six collaborating Northgate shops — two in every of the three collaborating counties — use loyalty playing cards to tally produce purchases and distribute the credit. The quantity of credit score individuals have earned and redeemed is itemized on the backside of their receipts, and the credit score carries over from month to month.
Research has proven that affordability is an impediment to more healthy consuming for folks of modest means. A 2013 study by researchers at Harvard and Brown universities estimated healthful weight-reduction plan prices about $550 a 12 months extra per particular person than an unhealthy one. “For many low-income families, this additional cost represents a genuine barrier to healthier eating,” the authors concluded. “Yet, this daily price difference is trivial in comparison with the lifetime personal and societal financial burdens of diet-related chronic diseases.”
A 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture revealed that meals stamp recipients spend a smaller proportion of their grocery budgets on fruit and veggies than different Americans do.
Financial incentives like those being examined in California can assist slender that hole.
A 2011 study of an incentive program in Massachusetts discovered that individuals on meals stamps who bought an additional 30 cents for each greenback they spent on fruit and veggies consumed almost a quarter-cup, or 26 p.c, extra recent produce per day than recipients who didn’t get such an incentive.
Last week, Más Fresco started to enroll a second spherical of as much as 2,000 individuals who will obtain the motivation for one 12 months. The present individuals will proceed in this system by way of June.
Prickitt stated he hopes that even after their monetary incentives finish, individuals will retain what they’ve discovered about wholesome consuming and proceed shopping for produce.
Rebeca Gonzalez says she will now afford pomegranates for her household due to the additional cash she receives by way of Más Fresco, an incentive program for buying produce. (Courtney Perkes for KHN)
Food coverage specialists word that many different elements can affect a household’s meals decisions, together with lack of time.
“If parents are working more than one job or children are in more than one school or activity, how do you teach the skills of how you can prepare food, even on a busy weeknight?” stated Dean Sidelinger, a pediatrician and youngster well being medical officer for San Diego County.
Some advocates for healthful diets have argued that authorities mustn’t solely encourage folks to purchase more healthy meals but additionally discourage unhealthful habits.
A 2014 Health Affairs study by Stanford University researchers confirmed that banning the acquisition of soda with meals stamps would scale back charges of weight problems and diabetes, whereas a credit score of 30 cents on the greenback for purchasing recent produce alone wouldn’t.
In 2017, greater than a dozen researchers from totally different universities urged SNAP to eliminate diet-related health disparities amongst packages for low-income folks. They famous, for instance, that the federal food-assistance program referred to as Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, excluded soda and sweet however that individuals may nonetheless purchase these merchandise with meals stamps.
“There are generations of unhealthy people who are overweight with diabetes and hypertension,” stated Jim Floros, president and CEO of the San Diego Food Bank, which has marketed the Más Fresco program to its purchasers. “That’s completely linked back to a poor diet, which is linked back to poverty.”
Rebeca Gonzalez, who moved to the U.S. at age 18, determined to overtake her household’s consuming habits after her husband, Javier Landeros, was recognized with diabetes two years in the past. Instead of shopping for cookies, she now retains chopped fruits and veggies within the fridge for snacks.
She stated she desires to instill the identical wholesome habits her grandmother handed on to her.
“I know she gave us good food,” Gonzalez stated, “because she lived 105 years.”
This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
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