Hospital farmers market aims to educate locals about eating healthy
Throughout the summer, Butler Memorial Hospital will be hosting a handful of monthly farmers market events in partnership with the Butler County Farm Bureau and Butler County Dairy Promotion Team.
The goal is not only to provide residents with fresh produce and meat products which supports local farmers, but also to educate youth and adults about what goes into their food and how they can utilize it to live a healthier lifestyle.
The most recent farmers market took place on Thursday, July 25, right inside the hospital’s Brady Street entrance.
About 10 local vendors were on sight to answer questions and educate customers about their products.
“We started these a few years ago,” Bob Peterson, director of nutrition services at Butler Memorial, said. “It's growing over time. This year is our most integrated year with the farm bureau. It's really trying to tell the community where food comes from, how we educate people. We have our Food Institute that falls into this.”
Kathy Selvaggi, chief community health officer for the Butler and Clarion Hospitals said the Food Institute at both hospitals is a vital part of healthy eating education. It specializes in healthy eating for the whole family, meal planning and preparing healthy recipes on a budget during monthly meetings.
“Over the years we are hoping to see decreases in diabetes, decreases in obesity and decreases in heart disease,” Selvaggi said. “What we eat is such an important issue.”
Selvaggi said that what she and others have learned by talking with people through the Food Institute is that they don’t know what is in their food most of the time.
It’s important for people to be educated on how they can meal prep with healthier food options. This is where the Food Institute steps in and provides recipes in order to help people eat healthier without breaking the bank.
“What we are seeing is more people are eating fruits and vegetables after going through our program,” Selvaggi said. “They are eating less processed foods and eating more whole grains. We are seeing changes in people's behavior.”
A new item to the hospital’s farmers market this year is its “farm bag,” Peterson said, which is where customers can buy a bag premade with fruits, vegetables and more, all for $25.
“This week it was all provided by Metrick’s Harvest View Farm,” Linda Halstead, secretary of the Butler County Farm Bureau, said. “In the future it could be a mix of different farms.”
One of the major goals of the Farm Bureau is education as well Halstead said, which involves getting youth more involved in agriculture to bring back more farmers to the region.
“People don't have the connections to learn about farms anymore,” Halstead said. “We are down from 300 some dairy farms in Butler County to 23.
“Now we just have to figure out how we keep the excitement about agriculture in front of them. A lot of our schools don’t have agriculture programs anymore like they used to. That's our next battle.”
Butler Memorial will be hosting three more farmers market events this summer on Aug. 22, Sept. 19 and Oct. 24.
All three will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the hospital’s Brady Street entrance.
