Alternative food practices, including farmers markets and CSAs, are often inaccessible to low-income families. Subsidized CSAs and fruit and vegetable prescription programs have the potential to decrease food insecurity, increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, and generate better health outcomes. However, several challenges can limit the success of such programs, including the logis¬tics of distribution and an inability to cook from scratch due to a lack of kitchen infrastructure, time, or skills. In this paper, we investigate two diet-related health programs conducted with commu¬nity partners in Madison, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon. We used photovoice to evaluate and enhance these programs, which supplied low-income participants with free or subsidized weekly shares of local food, addressed transportation bar¬riers associated with access, and offered recipes and cooking education. Drawing on social practice theory, we demonstrate how these programs altered food provisioning practices for low-income individuals and families by building their competence in the kitchen, fostering meaningful social relationships, and cultivating new meanings related to fresh, local food. The short-term gains were positive, and such community-based nutrition pro¬grams warrant continued support as part of a broader strategy to address poverty and food insecurity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.