Last week I had the privilege of touring one of three local Kiwanis Food Bank Gardens with fellow JOLT columnist Jill Severn.
It is Food Bank Week at The JOLT. My focus today is on health and nutrition; Jill's on Friday will focus on the gardens then and now. Yesterday, we ran a short news piece by Reporter P. Jade Asumbrado that included a video about the Capitol Campus Garden’s collaboration with Olympia High School’s Freedom Farmers.
Our tour guides were two staff members from for Thurston County Food Bank: Mackenzie McCall, agricultural resources supervisor and James Wirth, field to food bank coordinator at Calliope Farm. This pastoral property on Overhulse Road in West Olympia is the newest of the Kiwanis Gardens.
These three Food Bank gardens provide fresh, local, and sustainably grown vegetables to many of the 4200 needy families in our tri-county area they serve. Watch the moving and informative video at the top of this column.
James Wirth, who oversees the farming operation, said, “Providing nutritious and delicious foods is of high value to clients and, in so doing, gives their families the feeling that someone cares for them and emboldens the spirit."
Vegetables not only embolden the spirit, they also sustain and support physical and mental health. Nutrition is not a sideshow. It is foundational for strength, energy, and health.
I am delighted to write about a topic that is not controversial, offers a solution, and includes three healthy lifestyle actions: eating good food, connecting with the Earth (soil and plants), and being outside!
Nutrition advice is typically heavily weighted towards what NOT to eat. Eating vegetables is what TO EAT. The CDC nutrition guidelines are dizzying, and I will share this one pearl only:
Make every bite count and be rich in nutrients
Vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. They are low in overall calories and contain a high percentage of nutrient-rich calories. It is healthy to eat starchy vegetables such as potatoes and corn, too. Fresh corn and potatoes are more appetizing than those shipped from afar. Also, they are more satisfying and thus easier to eat in moderation. We are not talking about McDonald’s French fries, which are delicious but not healthily cooked nor easy to eat in moderation.
Vegetables are a dietary antidote for our culture suffering from an obesity epidemic, ‘hooked’ on high calorie/low nutrient ultra-processed foods. Every week, a new piece of research is published, espousing yet another way those foods are bad for our health. People are more likely to choose and eat food that tastes delicious. To the detriment of our health, the manufacturers of ultra-processed foods profit from this.
Food Bank Garden vegetables are picked ripe and delivered to people who will eat them in a couple of days. There are no shipping delays, minimal loss of nutrients, and minimal fossil fuel spent. They are grown using organic practices that support healthier soil and plants, which are thus higher in nutrition and flavor. Local. Fresh. Delicious. Nutritious. Healthy. Yum-yum. Win-win.
The Food Bank’s mission is to provide this access, a priceless contribution to community health. Their food is offered free of charge, with no income guidelines or stigma and is available at dozens of sites. They believe that having one’s basic needs met is a human right and that no one should need to have to decide between food and paying their rent.
Food bank produce is available with a ‘shopping cart model.’ This means that clients, like those of us who shop at grocery stores, get to choose what they take home. Choice limits food waste and maximizes the chance that the food gets eaten.
The Kiwanis gardens’ commitment to client preferences influences the crops they grow. To accommodate their partnership with a youth summer lunch program, they grow finger food, such as carrots and fresh snow peas, that can be packaged in the kids’ lunches for easy and healthy snacking.
Considering our cultural communities’ traditional vegetable preferences, they are growing about 130 crop varieties this year, including green beans, garlic, fava beans, bok choy, many varieties of peppers, tomatillos, cilantro, basil, and more.
School lunch programs serving fresh vegetables help children develop a taste for vegetables early that will last a lifetime. We choose to eat food we like and have long positive associations with. Starting young makes a difference in food choices and health.
The many volunteer school children and teens learn this as well as the joy of growing vegetables.
The Food Bank Gardens need volunteers: You can help grow vegetables and support the health of your community.
Three-hour shifts are set up to accommodate 12 volunteers per shift. Typically, 3-4 volunteer gardeners show up, During the time we toured, the 3 volunteers were weeding young carrots. In the spring, the Olympia High School soccer team planted all the early cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Romanesque, most of which have been harvested to the tune of ~1300 pounds. A dedicated group of mature gardeners annually grow the many seed starts for the season.
James Wirth's job must focus on the top priorities while many tasks go undone. The 4-foot-tall amaranth and other weeds were a testament to this need though amazingly (a testament to nature) the mature vegetables grew right among them.
You can sign up to volunteer (in the gardens or other roles) on this easy-to-navigate website. For prospective clients, the how, what, where, and when to access food is clearly laid out as well. Organizers are set up to work with anybody who wishes to volunteer, individually or with groups, special needs or none.
My hope is that more of us will eat more real food (fresh, simple, unprocessed) and enjoy it without feeling overburdened by the preparation. If it is easy and delicious, you will do it and eat more.
Here is a simple way I prepare fresh local green beans especially when time is of the essence:
The key is to buy FRESH local green beans. I buy mine at a fresh vegetable stand close to home: Sundance Farm Stand. (Thank you, Willow.) These are not your Costco frozen green beans that look good but are tasteless. Who wants to eat those?
Start a pot of boiling water big enough to cover the amount of beans you want to cook.
Trim the ends of the beans, cut them into pieces to fit in the pan, or leave them whole.
Throw them in and boil until cooked to your level of tenderness ~5-10 minutes.
Take bites through the process as over-cooking detracts from the taste and texture you prefer.
Drain off the water.
Serve drizzled with olive oil and/or butter and sprinkle with your favorite seasoning. Suggestions include seasoning salt, lemon pepper, chili lime seasoning, etc. Experiment with others. You can’t ruin these.
Cooking can be fun and creative. Attitude matters. Explore recipes with friends and family, in books, and on the internet. You’ll have your favorites but keep experimenting. Cooking yummy food is an art form and good for your health.
Here is a great resource guide for fresh local food from the Community Farm Land Trust. It is available online and as a newsprint brochure around town. I got my copy at the Thurston County Fair and love it.
In summary, here is my prescription for health:
Get outside, buy and eat local fresh food, and be healthy.
Volunteer for the local food bank too – it will be good for your body and soul.
Debra L. Glasser, M.D., is a retired internal medicine physician in Olympia. Got a question for her? Write drdebra@theJOLTnews.com
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