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Food bank offers healthy alternatives for low-income families
| Thursday, Aug 14 2008 5:50 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Aug 15 2008 7:23 AM
Barbie Bowden tries to serve her children healthy food.
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Due to rising grocery and gas costs, the food bank has less food coming in and more mouths to feed, said program manager Gary Romriell.
The food bank would rather take money than food donations because it can buy food at cheaper rates from various sources. One dollar buys 10 pounds of food, Romriell said.
To donate or to find out how to organize a food drive, call the food bank at 398-4520 or send donations to Community Action Partnership of Kern Food Bank, P.O. Box 134, Bakersfield, CA 93302.
Standing in line at the Community Action Partnership of Kern Food Bank, she explained how she includes a vegetable in meals. Fruit is dessert.
“We usually have chicken because it’s really cheap,” said the Bakersfield 25-year-old.
So to get tips on how to turn the “emergency” food given at the food bank into nutritious meals, “it would be very helpful,” she said.
The county Department of Public Health Services set up shop at the east Bakersfield food bank Thursday with recipes, booths and samples of food made from food bank staples for people to try. Residents partook of chicken and rice salad, rice pudding and lentils with potatoes.
“A lot of people think that if ‘I don’t have a lot, I can’t choose well,’” said Public Health Services Director John Nilon. “No matter where you shop, there are always opportunities for healthy food.”
This is the first of many education programs to come at the food bank.
The effort is in response to Kern’s rising overweight and obesity rate and unhealthy food options, officials said.
According to a study released in April, Kern County is near the top of the list in California for its concentration of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.
Compared with 23 other California counties with more than 250,000 residents, Kern is No. 3 with 5.23 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors, according to the study by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, the research institute PolicyLink and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
The study argued this concentration leads to higher obesity rates. In Kern County, 38 percent of adults are overweight and 28 percent are obese, according to UCLA.
“That is the train wreck that is upon us,” Nilon said, of obesity.
The food bank is at the whim of the food that is donated, said program manager Gary Romriell. It will take just about anything.
Candy bars, muffins and birthday cakes were mixed in among plums, bananas and pre-packaged salad.
But if more people went for the healthy options, less food would be wasted, he said.
“More produce would go out before we had to dump it,” Romriell said. “That’s food that’s being thrown away.”