Plump, red strawberries and frilly, yellow pattypan squash are typical sights at Culver City Farmers’ Market this month. Open every Tuesday afternoon on a tree-shaded street south of the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles, Culver City runs just like any other springtime, open-air stand. But the produce at this particular market provides more than fresh, local foods—it may also signal a breakthrough in public health policy, thanks to a study conducted by University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers that was recently published in the American Journal of Public Health.

In 2004, Dena Herman, a dietician and public health researcher at UCLA, wanted to know if low-income families would eat more fresh fruits and vegetables if they could afford them. So, she teamed up with California public health agencies and recruited 602 women in LA who were receiving assistance through the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program, which provides milk, bread, and other staples—not including produce—to low-income mothers.

Herman divided the mothers into three categories: one group received $10 in vouchers per week to buy produce at a supermarket; another received an equal share of vouchers for the Culver City Farmers’ Market; and the control group received no additional food vouchers. After six months, the families that had been given the produce vouchers were eating almost three more servings of fruits and vegetables every day than the control group.

Both groups that received vouchers used about 90 percent of them, proving that “they valued fresh foods,” says Herman.

The mothers purchased a wide range of foods, from mustard greens to peaches. “They weren’t just potatoes and onions,” says Linnea Sallack, director of the California WIC program. “The families made a lot of great choices to really maximize the value of the vouchers for good nutrition."

According to Sallack, WIC programs have always offered dietary education, but there has been little funding to help families implement the recommendations to eat fresh foods. She wasn’t surprised by the findings, though, because her agency regularly surveys participants and “year after year, the families would say, ‘We’d like fruits and vegetables.’"

Extra money wasn’t the only motivation for healthy eating, however. Herman continued tracking the women after their voucher supply ran out. After six months, those that had been shopping at the farmers’ market maintained a high rate of produce consumption while the supermarket shoppers began to slip.

Herman can’t be sure what made the difference, but mothers who frequented the farmers’ market told her that they liked the quality and the food offered there. That may also explain why they redeemed slightly more of their vouchers than did the supermarket group, even though the farmers’ market was open only one afternoon a week, while the supermarket was open daily.

Steve Whipple, the manager of the Culver City market, knows that he gained some long-term customers in the WIC moms. “[They enjoy] the community element, where people who wouldn’t otherwise mingle are getting together, talking, shopping,” he says. At the market, farmers often offer cooking tips and recipes and let people sample unfamiliar foods. And then there’s the matter of taste, says Whipple. “It’s local agriculture. It’s vine-ripened and it’s in season, and that’s just better."

For fresh, local food, $10 a week is relatively nothing, says Herman. Still, scraping up the money, getting transportation, and finding childcare in order to hit the farmers’ market is a challenge for families with meager resources. “The choice to go to a farmers’ market is really a choice,” says Herman. “They definitely have to decide that this is important to them—and they did."

The importance of fruits and vegetables was not lost on public health officials, either. Encouraged in part by results from the UCLA study, the federal WIC agency recently announced new rules. By October 2009, WIC food options will include not only milk, bread, eggs, but also and fruits and vegetables.

Posted on May 19, 2008 at 7:56 AM
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