Healthy Living Requires Healthy Food 

There are three main drivers behind our work as a charity in providing fresh fruit and veg boxes to those suffering financial hardship in our community: alleviating food poverty, providing a healthy diet, and reducing food waste. Today I’d like to address the issue of healthy eating. 

Recent research by EIT Food found that young people aged 18-24 (Gen Z) are increasingly interested not only in how many calories a food contains, or its food miles, but also how healthy their food is. Gen Z research healthy eating online and on social media, and 82% of young women surveyed would like advice on the link between food and mental health. EIT Food surveyed over 2,000 young adults in this age group from across the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Spain. ‘The findings point to a generation that is very interested, knowledgeable and entrepreneurial when it comes to their eating habits, and especially how they link to their wellbeing and mental health.’ 

This is wonderful news and bodes well for the future. However, those we provide veg boxes to are not usually internet-savvy Gen Z young people from comfortable economic circumstances. Eating healthily while living on a reduced income is not easy. Fast foods and processed foods are often cheaper and easier to purchase and eat than raw foods that need cooking. A lack of knowledge on healthy eating and how to cook can also be a factor, and education in this area is important as well. And sometimes it’s just laziness – it’s quicker to pop a ready prepared meal in the microwave than to cook it from scratch – or that tastes formed during the formative growing years were influenced by a surplus of junk food and very little raw food. Despite the veg boxes being free some people in need choose not to receive one, which I find heart-breaking. As the header says, healthy living requires healthy food!

We will be collecting donations of fresh fruit and vegetables as usual this Saturday from 9-12am at the Potton  Allotments, and in Biggleswade by prior arrangement. We also receive donations from supermarkets, veg distributors and schools, for which we are very grateful, but freshly picked veg from your allotment or farm cannot be beaten for nutritional value. Please support us in helping those in financial need in our communities to get a healthy diet.

To volunteer with the Veg Box Donation Scheme, email hello@vbds.org.uk for more info.

EIT Food article sourced from: https://www.eitfood.eu/news/post/gen-z-demand-radical-change-from-the-food-sector-to-tackle-access-to-healthy-and-affordable-food