Tag Archives: fruits vegetables

At the Market

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I am at the market where a bunch of bananas cost only 25 cent! I really only wanted wanted one but got a whole bunch. The bananas were extremely sweet.

Ana and her family wanted to know if I could taste the difference between the Banana’s in New York and Ecuador. They are better here right?

I couldn’t really answer though because I don’t frequently eat banana’s. I just told them what they wanted to here, Banana’s are totally better in Ecuador!

Oh, and you see the lady selling tooth brushes? The hustle was real. The market was very loud. There was a constant chatter. While vendors were compromising with buyers, peddlers were nagging them, showing off their items. If you look close, you can see there are more peddlers in this photo.

I was trying to hold on to each dollar but I ended up buying from a child peddler who was selling 10 sweet kiwi for a dollar.

Heidi & Daughter

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This is the director of the Mary Mitchell Center  -wearing her garden hat- smiling with her lovely daughter. She is the strong force that holds down the “No Junk Food” policy at the center.

It is only fitting that I include a photo of her for my Hats or Hats Not Project while wearing a garden hat.

Kennedy Fried Chicken and Pizza

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Only when I am very hungry and have no other food choices to make, do I go to chicken joints. The food is so greasy and pre-cooked, there is no way I can crave for it.  Their prices are low which is probably why they stay in the neighborhood. If people would just make healthier choices, then maybe there would be better quality restaurants in our neighborhoods.

Funny, all of sudden the government is concern about our health. Telling people to work-out and bashing fast foods, yet, every time I go into a poor neighborhood, I see the same thing: Chinese restaurants, chicken joints and pizza shops galore.  Papa John’s and Little Caesars seem the same. I don’t understand the argument. Is one really better than the other? Why can’t the government put their money where their mouths are and put healthy restaurants with low prices in poor neighborhoods?

The Family Health Challenge

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If we don’t change the way we eat, half of the children born in the Bronx will have diabetes in their lifetime.

Don’t pay fast food places to make you sick, buy fresh food and cook it at home.

You deserve to be healthy!

These slogans were all taken from a Mary Mitchell Flyer.

Last year, the Mary Mitchell Center started a Family Health Challenge, a campaign to encourage people to eat and be healthy (view the following blog to see some of the rules the challenge included each week).  Each week children, parents and staff added or subtracted something from their to diet. The Challenge went viral. People outside of the center participated. Even our own senator, Gustavo Rivera, joined.

This year, the Mary Mitchell Center decided to take the Challenge a step further. Its goal? To bring healthy and fresh food into the neighborhood.

Over the summer of 2011, four students from Columbia University helped the center put together a food buying agenda. Most of the bodegas and supermarkets in the Bronx do not sell fresh food. Along with the director of the center, Heidi Hynes, the students thought of ways to get fresh food into the neighborhood.

Our purpose was to not only tell people to be healthy but to make it easier  for families to get healthy food, Hynes continued, we adopted most of the ideas from a  food buying club program located in Toronto, Canada.

The program that Mary Mitchell now runs is called La Canasta and it’s slogan is :  Market Fresh Food at Wholesale Prices Delivered to you.

As a member of La Canasta, one can get fresh farm food for only $25 per week. The bag  actually contains $35 worth of food. It is a good deal, but you must be willing to cook!  It includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains and dry beans.

If you are interested in this program contact Heidi Hynes at 917-402-4129 or via email at lacanasta@bronxsupply.com.