Minnesota Clinic Gives Patients Free Produce To Improve Health

Telling patients to eat more vegetables is easy. Making sure they can actually get them is another story. A clinic in Red Wing, Minnesota, is doing both through a program that provides free fresh produce to patients who might otherwise struggle to afford or find healthy food.

CARE Clinic’s VeggieRx program, called the Fresh Food Farmacy, lets uninsured and underinsured patients take home bags of fruits and vegetables each week. The amount depends on household size, so families benefit, too. It’s especially helpful in rural communities, where grocery stores can be far away and fresh produce is often more expensive or harder to find.

The program appears to be doing more than filling refrigerators. Researchers who examined patient data found that people with diabetes who regularly picked up produce saw meaningful improvements in their A1C levels, a measure of long-term blood sugar control. The results suggest that making healthy food more accessible can help people better manage chronic conditions.

Programs like this aren’t a complete solution to food insecurity, especially since they often depend on grants and donations to keep running. But the idea is refreshingly practical: instead of just telling people to eat their vegetables, give them some vegetables to eat.
Source: MPR News