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Big Picture
Chronic disease:
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Food is the #2 cause behind tobacco
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Dietary patterns accumulate over decades
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Widespread and burdensome
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Expensive: 90% of our nation’s medical care costs
Produce prescriptions aim to help people shift their dietary patterns by increasing fruit & vegetable intake
Lost River Market and Nutrition Prescriptions
Lost River Market saw an opportunity to fulfill its mission to promote economic prosperity, community well-being, and self-reliance through cooperation. Through Nutrition Prescription and other Lost River Local Initiatives.....
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Lost River is able to connect and enhance our local food system through community partnerships
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Aggregate, distribute and sell more locally grown produce
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Educate our community on making budget friendly, healthy food choices
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Address food insecurity through local food access
Community Partnerships
Community wide initiatives require building strong community relationships. Have a vision and share it with others! Community partnerships are critical to community-wide projects.
Lost River Market Community Partners:
Orange County Community Foundation Inc.
Southern Indiana Community Health Care IU Center for Rural Engagement
First Presbyterian Church of Paoli
Throop Elementary
Orange County Health Coalition
Purdue Extension
Nutrition Prescription Program
Participants were referred into the program from Southern Indiana Community Health Care​
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Each person took an initial bio-metrics and pre-course survey
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55 participants were then placed in one of two groups
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Food Choice Group or Food Box Group
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Food Box Group: 12 weeks of food boxes with instructions, access to cooking and nutrition videos, and access to the online Nutrition Prescription Facebook group
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Food Choice Group: Receive a $60 gift card to Lost River Market and Deli
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Group Post program biometrics and surveys were conducted to test the effectiveness of the program
Satisfied Participants
Excited by the results: “Look at the difference in us in 3 months’ time. My sugar has gone from 165 in the morning down to 86. After-meal sugars have gone down from 300 to 104. We eat a lot more fruits and vegetables. We're more conscious of what we eat. We drink much more water than anything else. It's really made a big difference.”
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Fitting cooking into a busy day: “Just being in the rut. We’ve always ate out. I’m a nurse, so I work long hours. I work crazy shifts at the dialysis center. I get up at 3am and I’m there 10 to 12 hours, and I never know what time I’m going to get off, so by the time you’ve worked a long shift, you just want to come home, eat and go to bed. This pushed me to cook more.”
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Trying new foods & making changes: “The fresh vegetables – the other night I made a meatloaf, and instead of putting onions, I put mushrooms and other things we’d never put in before. It brings so much more to the food. I was never a mushroom eater, and now I eat them. He loves the eggplant and especially the green beans. It’s really changed the way we eat – away from sugary/starchy and more into the vegetables and fruits. We eat more whole grain pasta. We’ve changed potatoes. We’ll have rice and cauliflower, and make those like mashed potatoes. We drink a lot more water, less soda.”
