Photo Source: http://kalw.org/post/how-modern-day-chuckwagon-gets-kids-eat-their-veggies#stream/0 Hello from the Lowcountry! My name is Erin Hargens and I am a Sodexo Distance dietetic intern in Charleston, South Carolina. I just finished my community rotation and am now working through basic clinical! I completed the majority of my community rotation with the Lowcountry Food Bank and I absolutely loved it! I was able to gain valuable experiences with many hunger relief and nutrition education programs such as: Cooking Matters, Kids Café, Meals on Wheels, and Backpack Buddies. Although I had a great time with each experience, one of my favorite parts was participating in a Fresh For All!
A Fresh For All, or mobile farmers market, is what the Lowcountry Food Bank uses to provide fresh fruits and vegetables in areas of the community where they are not easily accessible. What makes their Fresh For All’s special, is the incorporation of a rolling kitchen, known as “Charlie Cart.” The Lowcountry Food Bank purchased Charlie Cart through grant money, as a way to have a mobile teaching kitchen so they could demonstrate recipes and teach families how to prepare foods in ANY setting! The full mobile kitchen features an electric griddle, induction burner, convection oven, blender, rinse station, cookware/smallwares and a generator.
At each Fresh For All, there is a featured vegetable (which is also available!) and a healthy low-cost recipe that incorporates it. Charlie Cart is set up at the beginning and as people wait to collect their groceries they learn about the featured vegetable, watch as the recipe is demonstrated, and get to sample the meal. The Fresh For All that I got to participate in highlighted acorn squash. I demonstrated an acorn squash barley risotto recipe that many people enjoyed and were surprised to like! I talked about different cooking methods, the nutritional benefits, and provided the recipe to those who wanted to try this at home. The use of Charlie Cart helped me to get people interested in a new vegetable and improved their acceptance to new nutritious meals!
For more information about Charlie Cart, you can visit http://charliecart.org/
A Fresh For All, or mobile farmers market, is what the Lowcountry Food Bank uses to provide fresh fruits and vegetables in areas of the community where they are not easily accessible. What makes their Fresh For All’s special, is the incorporation of a rolling kitchen, known as “Charlie Cart.” The Lowcountry Food Bank purchased Charlie Cart through grant money, as a way to have a mobile teaching kitchen so they could demonstrate recipes and teach families how to prepare foods in ANY setting! The full mobile kitchen features an electric griddle, induction burner, convection oven, blender, rinse station, cookware/smallwares and a generator.
At each Fresh For All, there is a featured vegetable (which is also available!) and a healthy low-cost recipe that incorporates it. Charlie Cart is set up at the beginning and as people wait to collect their groceries they learn about the featured vegetable, watch as the recipe is demonstrated, and get to sample the meal. The Fresh For All that I got to participate in highlighted acorn squash. I demonstrated an acorn squash barley risotto recipe that many people enjoyed and were surprised to like! I talked about different cooking methods, the nutritional benefits, and provided the recipe to those who wanted to try this at home. The use of Charlie Cart helped me to get people interested in a new vegetable and improved their acceptance to new nutritious meals!
For more information about Charlie Cart, you can visit http://charliecart.org/
