BY ARIEL SCHWARTZ
Obesity is undoubtedly a major problem in the U.S, but it's nearly impossible to stop in the nation's food deserts, which lack access to affordable, healthy food. The California Freshworks Fund announced recently that it is giving $200 million to food vendors (everything from grocery stores to food trucks) in the state's food deserts, but Indiana already has a potential solution on the ground in the form of Garden on the Go, a truck filled with local and regional fruits and vegetables that stops throughout the week in an area that lacks easy access to healthful food.
The truck, created through a partnership between Indiana University Health and Green B.E.A.N. Delivery, has been in operation since May. It stops at a dozen places in Marion County, including public housing and senior facilities, and customers can pay for their produce with food stamps. The mobile produce truck has, according to Garden on the Go, been wildly successful--it just hit its 5,000th customer.
Garden on the Go isn't the only mobile produce market cruising the country. New York City's Holton Farms Mobile Farm Truck brings its produce to CSA members throughout the city, and Maine's Mobile Farm Stand brings fresh fruit and vegetables to senior housing sites. So food desert denizens, take note: as of now, the produce truck may be the best obesity-fighting option around.
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