Peaches & Green Deliver Healthy Eats To Detroit Neighborhood

By Alicia Cruz
Senior writer
Theblackurbantimes

One company is making it easier for people in a Detroit neighborhood to eat healthier. Five days a week, the Peaches and Green truck arrives with Rhythm & Blues music flowing from the trucks loudspeaker and an announcement: “Nutritious, delicious. Brought right to you. We have green and red tomatoes, white and sweet potatoes. We have greens, corn on the cob and cabbage, too.”
They carry everything from bananas, grapefruit, oranges, cherries, kiwis to strawberries and the residents come out in droves to spend their money and eat healthy. The truck is reminiscent of the portable Mercado's back in Colombia that sit on the road side selling everything from fresh meat to coffee to vegetables.
The neighborhood is well-stocked with liquor stores, fast-food joints and candy stores, but only one grocery store that isn't convenient for many of the residents. many end up "grocery" shopping at the convenience stores that stock very little, if any, fresh fruit or vegetables and their prices are far from reasonable.

The lack of fresh food is a public health problem in Detroit, which has one of the nation’s highest obesity rates. Other cities also are struggling with obesity, diabetes and other illnesses tied to diets high in calories and sugar.
Like many areas in States like North and South Carolina, things are spread-out over miles which makes it tough for those without transportation to get to grocery markets with healthier foods and reasonable prices.
People eat better when it’s easy for them to get healthy foods, said Lilian Cheung, a researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended improving the availability of fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods in low-income areas lacking grocery stores as part of a broad effort to curb obesity, she noted.

Peaches & Greens has community gardens, where volunteers grow greens, tomatoes and other vegetables to help stock the truck. The food also is offered at a neighborhood produce market, and organizers hope to persuade liquor stores and corner markets to stock their vegetables.
“People will buy it,” said Lisa Johanon, executive director of the nonprofit Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corp., which runs Peaches & Greens. “We’ve seen the stereotype that urban communities won’t eat healthy, and we’re seeing that isn’t true.”
The truck brings out residents like 49-year-old Gween Ensley, who lives with and cares for a 46-year-old woman kept mostly home bound by health problems including frostbitten feet. They listen for the truck’s music, and Ensley said she flags down the driver each time.
“There’s no market close to us,” said Ensley, who would otherwise have to walk more than a mile past vacant lots and abandoned homes to a store and haul back heavy bags of produce. Eastern Market, the city’s main farmers market, is even farther — 4 miles. “This is the way for the lady I take care of to get fresh fruits and vegetables,” she said.
The truck started making rounds of the 3-square-mile neighborhood last year and runs from mid-March to mid-December, since residents are reluctant to brave un-shoveled sidewalks during snowy Michigan winters. The truck is equipped with a handheld scanner to ring up purchases from food assistance recipients, who get funds transferred electronically onto a card used like a debit card.