Eating healthy foods can address and prevent a lot of health issues.
New grant funding is helping the Virginia Community Health Care Association address food insecurity and teach people how food can be an effective prevention and treatment of diet-related diseases and chronic illnesses.
“As you know, we can get a lot of nutrients from all different vegetables, which is why we talk about eating the rainbow. Each color, even white is considered to have its own nutrient benefits just like all of the other colors of the rainbow when you think about your fruits and vegetables.”
Adrienne Harden, Dietitian at the Virginia Community Health Care Association
We spoke with Adrienne Harden, a registered dietitian with the Virginia Community Health Care Association, which has plenty of one-stop-shop health clinics all across the Commonwealth.
“Herbs and spices were used as medicine, so each one has different properties. Most of them can give you anti-inflammatory properties meaning that anything that causes your body to flare up, can calm that down whenever there is an infection in your body, especially pepper, cayenne pepper even.”
Adrienne Harden, Virginia Community Health Care Association
Thanks to a $400,000 grant from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation, she’s working to teach people how eating certain foods and spices can improve their health.
She also told us about how whole grains are much healthier than refined grains.
A lot of people are facing issues with managing their blood sugar, like if they may have diabetes, and a lot of times when you are getting all that extra starch and sugar without all the good fiber you are not getting as many nutrients or the benefits that help with our digestion as well.”
Adrienne Harden, Dietitian at the Virginia Community Health Care Association
The Food as Medicine program is available at all VCHA clinics, and their goal is to help Virginians get healthier by learning how to eat to address certain health conditions.
We have multiple VHCA Member Health Centers in Southwest and Central Virginia.
Members will have direct access to a registered dietitian who can offer group nutrition education classes, one on one counseling for patients and nutrition focused workshops, cooking demos and webinars.
Adrianne also gave us a fantastic recipe for a vegetarian quesadilla if you’d like to try out this style of cooking for yourself! You can find that recipe here.