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Give good nutrition during the holiday season

Charitable food gifts to the poor are more nutritious with advice and ideas from the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE).

UCCE’s nutrition programs focus on good-sense eating on a budget. Sixteen California county UCCE offices host the federally funded food and nutrition education program and 36 county offices offer nutrition, shopping and healthy food preparation information to food stamp recipients.

“It’s a good idea to be cognizant of the healthfulness of food gifts,” said UC nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor Shirley Peterson of San Luis Obispo County. “The majority of people can benefit from a low-sugar, low-fat and high-fiber diet.”

For this reason, she suggests gifts of food to food banks, churches, food drives or other recipients follow that basic guideline.

Food banks tend to receive a great deal of grain products, Peterson said, but they tend not to be whole grain varieties. Since bread perishes quickly, she suggests giving whole grain ready-to-eat and hot cereal. Look for products that are calcium fortified. Canned chicken, tuna and salmon packed in water and dry or canned beans are excellent low-fat sources of protein. Canned fruits packed in their own juice and canned vegetables are a great benefit to families.

Peterson suggested benefactors be aware that some food bank recipients are homeless and may have limited access to storage space, refrigeration and cooking facilities. For recipients in this situation, easy-to-prepare and ready-to-eat foods would be most helpful.

Give ethnic food staples

Providing healthful ethnic food staples is a way to support programs that benefit families who prefer foods with a Latino or Asian flavor.

Martha Lopez is the UCCE nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for Ventura County. She suggests the following donations of food where Latino families are recipients: Long-grain rice, vermicelli, oatmeal, canned shrimp, canned broths, canned vegetables – including tomato products, corn, chili peppers, green beans, olives and nopales (cactus pads) – dry pinto beans and lentils, nuts, cornmeal, masa, harina and fresh potatoes, onions, garlic and cabbage.

UCCE nutrition educator Sua Vang works with low-income families of Southeast Asian descent in Fresno County. She said donations of rice and canned oriental vegetables, such as bamboo shoots, mushrooms and baby corn, would be most welcome.

Garden surplus makes nutritious food gifts

The Fresno County UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program supports gardeners interested in helping the poor with gifts of food. The Master Gardener Program is a network of gardening enthusiasts who have been trained by UC academics in horticulture. They educate the public on environmentally sound gardening practices. As part of a national program started by the Garden Writers Association of America, the Fresno volunteers have joined with the Fresno Community Food Bank to encourage local gardeners to “Plant a Row for the Hungry” in their vegetable gardens.

“If you have extra room in the garden, plant a few more plants to produce more than your own family will need,” said Laurie Labbitt Perry, the coordinator of the Plant a Row for the Hungry program in Fresno County. “In the summertime, almost everybody has extra zucchini or so much fruit that it’s falling from trees. Whatever you have to give, there are people who would be delighted to have it.”

Labbitt Perry said she personally donates persimmons in the fall to a food pantry at Hope Lutheran Church in Fresno. She just heard from a local man with two walnut trees loaded with nuts and is working with Master Gardener volunteers to collect the nutritious protein source and deliver it to those in need.

The popularity of backyard citrus trees in the Fresno area led to the development of “Citrus Saturdays,” two days set aside to gather excess citrus fruit grown on backyard trees and deliver it to food banks and pantries.

“There was so much citrus going to waste and so much good nutrition that was being lost,” Labbitt Perry said.

On Saturdays Feb. 4 and March 11, 2006, citrus will be collected at the Master Gardeners’ “Garden of the Sun,” at the corner of Winery and McKinley avenues in Fresno. The Master Gardeners provide free gardening education programs to all participants. People with full backyard citrus trees in other parts of the state can give the gift of good nutrition by picking and delivering the excess to local food banks.

(December 2005)

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