One of the Diabetes Prevention Program participants, Anna for the purposes of this story, took it upon herself to prepare a distinctly Mexican salad for one of our nutrition class cooking demos this week. When collecting her receipt for the ingredients, I faintly balked. It was hand-written in pencil, and torn from a common academic three-ring binder. I sheepishly asked her whether she had a proper receipt, from the store in which she had purchased the vegetables. Then Anna tells me the most fascinating story.
Every week, she gets a call from a fruit and vegetable vendor asking whether he should come by on Saturday. Most weeks Anna says yes.
Around mid-day she hears someone knock at her front door. She descends the stairs of her own home, and proceeds to shop for good looking vegetables and fruits in the bed of this man’s pick-up truck! Indeed, the vendor brings his best vegetables and fruits to peoples’ doorsteps every Saturday for sale.
When I asked why she shops with him, as opposed to going to the store just over a mile from her home, she asks with patience how, exactly, she should shop without transportation? ‘ “Besides,” she explains, “he knows what we cook and always have exactly what we need for our favorite meals.”
Incredible the kinds of resources people with difficult circumstances create for themselves to meet their needs. If we continued to tap into this informal network, perhaps we could get even more vegetables and fruits on people’s tables on a daily basis, thereby lowering their risk for diet-related chronic disease!
The ingredients receipt!
