Bay Area nonprofit provides fresh veggies, cooking classes to people living in a food desert » Yale Climate Connections

Transcript:

At cooking workshops in Richmond, California, participants learn to make mushroom tacos, cauliflower ceviche, and other vegetarian meals.

McClellan: “They’re talking about how they never thought it would be this good, they never thought about making this … but they end up trying it and liking it and they want to go home and make it and make it for their family.”

David McClellan is with the Veggie RX program at Urban Tilth, a Richmond-based nonprofit.

The program distributes free, locally grown produce to residents of a largely Black and Latino section of the city where there are few places to buy fresh, healthy food.

And it offers cooking demos and an online cookbook to teach people how to prepare tasty plant-rich meals.

Project manager Bailey Ward says locally grown food is better for people’s bodies and the climate.

She says trucking in less food from far away can reduce climate-warming carbon dioxide and air pollution that harms people’s health.

Ward: “And then things like factory farming produce a lot of methane and other pollutants especially when it comes to the beef industry.”

Eating less meat cuts back on that pollution.

So the program is helping more people enjoy healthy, delicious meals that are also good for the climate.

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media