Google searches for Vitamin D and Zinc are at an all-time high, and there is no surprise why after the numerous reports from this weekend.
While everyone is clamoring for supplements and capsules we cannot forget about building a strong foundation. The most important place to start is to rethink your food as medicine and build immunity through your diet.
How can a healthy diet help build immune health? Enter Farmbox Direct, a pioneer in the food as medicine space. They believe in the healing power of food and provide a farm to table subscription of fresh, organic fruits and veggies.
A diet rich in vitamins and minerals is the absolute best base for building foundational wellness and a strong immune system. This is why Farmbox Direct has a focus on organics as they have long been suspected to be more nutrient dense than their non-organic counterparts, including your immune boosting staples like vitamin C, D and Zinc. Additionally, organics have also been proven to have a higher concentration of immune boosting antioxidants than their non-organic counterparts.
In addition to quality – travel time also plays a significant role in the amount of nutrients that are in the food you’re eating. When you purchase produce from the grocery store, not only is it likely conventionally grown, but it has traveled from farm to distributor where it was stocked on shelves until it gets purchased by a grocery store. At that time, the produce travels from distributor to grocery stockroom and from there to the shelf. In fact, according to a study conducted by Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the average head of lettuce travels over 2,000 miles before it even makes it to your plate!
Farmbox Direct has direct partnerships with their farms to provide the most nutrient dense foods while minimizing food travel miles, stock shelf time, and the carbon footprint of the traditional food supply chain– all of which are known to degrade nutrient density.
Farmbox Direct offers seasonally appropriate customizable boxes; including green juicing kits (to get those greens and minerals in) and immunity boosting orange juicing kits (to make sure you get that vitamin C).
I invite you to speak with Ashley Tyrner, Founder and CEO of Farmbox Direct. Ashley didn’t always have time to make a weekly trip to her local farmers market to pick up the freshest produce for her kitchen, and that’s when she began to realize the true need for this service. With the underlying belief that everyone truly deserves the right to eat healthy, Farmbox Direct was born with a vision of how food SHOULD be: fresh and healthy. Her driving principle is to address the needs of busy moms, food-challenged families and to eradicate the overwhelming food desert problem. With this in mind, Ashley personally hand picks every farm, and vendor that Farmbox Direct works with.
At the start of 2020, She also founded FarmboxRX, which partnered with insurance company Vibra Health to give free food boxes to elderly Medicare patients with diet and chronic-related illnesses. The initiative was created to work with insurance companies to provide free access to fruit and vegetables to under-served populations – fresh fruits and vegetables are essential for healthy eating, and in turn, that actively supports a well-functioning immune system.
VEGWORLD had the opportunity to speak to Ashley about FarmBox. Check it out below!
What sparked you to start this venture to not only raise awareness of the importance of fresh produce, but also provide a means for people to have access to it?
It really was the lack of accessibility. Over time I realized that millions of Americans live in a food desert, and have zero accessibility to fresh fruits and veggies. The only way to truly eradicate this issue in our country is to ship the produce to consumers’ homes via FedEx or ups; as their logistics are expansive.
What are some of the biggest takeaways you’ve received so far from the people that have refined your boxes?
We change lives by changing health outcomes. It is truly humbling and inspiring to hear people say how we have helped them lower their insulin needs, improve their lives and mobility by our service.
What goals do you have for Farmbox Direct?
Success for me is fully eradicating the food desert problem America faces, and my newest goal is to revolutionize healthcare with our new initiative in health care; FarmboxRx, where we ship produce boxes to health plan members who have diet or chronic related illness.
