Richard Coons holds a handful of cherry tomatoes that he plucked from the plants at Red Rake Farm near Mangohick. photos by ROBERT A. MARTIN/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

The Virginia Cooperative Extension offers a Family Nutrition Program, funded through the Department of Social Services. It helps people who could be eligible for food stamps. Mary Belman, program assistant, teaches people how to eat healthy on a budget. Here are some of her tips: Make a menu: Survey your fridge and pantry, look through sale fliers, then plan a menu for the week. Make a list: Base your grocery list on that menu. And stick to the list when you go to the store. Shop once a week: Any more or less and you'll spend more money. Don't shop hungry: This tempts you to buy expensive snacks and ready-to-eat foods. Go generic: Store brands often offer a better buy with good quality. Read the labels: The first ingredient is the one with the largest quantity. Don't waste money on foods that provide mainly fat, sugar and empty calories. Go skim: Low-fat milk often costs a little less and offers the same nutritional value as whole milk, without all the fat. Stay in season: Fruits and vegetables cost less in season. Be fresh: Buy only vegetables and fruits free from wilting, bruises and decay. Chill out: Sometimes frozen or canned fruits and vegetables offer the same nutrition for less money. Make your own: Homemade baked goods can have more iron and complex vitamins than the ready-to-eat varieties. And they usually cost less. Go for the grain: Whole-grain cereals provide more nutrition and tend to cost less than the sugary, fancy-flavored cereals. Jill La Brasseur, communications specialist for the national initiative Fruits & Veggies--More Matters, offers more tips for boosting nutrition on a budget: Cut back on meat: Most Americans eat more than they should. "Open up a can of peas and carrots, and serve everyone a smaller pork chop," La Brasseur said. Toss in a handful: Casseroles and Hamburger Helper meals can be cheap and easy. Make them go farther--and bump up the nutrition factor--by adding frozen vegetables. Surf the Web: The Fruits & Veggies--More Matters Web site offers hundreds of fruit and vegetable recipes, along with a meal-planning guide. Other sites offer similar helps. Stock up on sales: Frozen and canned fruits and vegetables and 100 percent juice sometimes go on sale. Stock up at these times. The frozen, canned and juiced options offer almost as much nutrition as fresh produce, La Brasseur said. Consider nutrition: That bag of potato chips might cost less per volume than the bag of baby carrots. But you get more nutrition per dollar with the carrots. fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org The practice of picking leftover crops dates at least back to biblical times, when farmers were told to leave food growing in the fields for the widowed and poor. More and more hunger relief groups have turned to the practice in the past year, as rising food and fuel costs have made it difficult to keep the cupboards packed. The lack of fresh fruits and vegetables could be one reason why poverty has been linked to obesity. A recent study found that seven of the most obese states are also among the top 10 poorest states. A study on American fruit and vegetable consumption found that poor people were less likely to eat enough produce. The survey said some reasons for this included: the low cost and convenience of snack foods; widespread advertising for "nutritionally poor foods"; and government subsidies. The U.S. government subsidizes corn and cotton crops but not more nutritional fruit and vegetable crops. --Amy Flowers Umble

Date published: 9/2/2008

Most recent reader comments:

Great work (posted by Fredtastic , Sep. 2, 2008 1:20 pm)

0 likes