Let’s Celebrate Fruits & Vegetables!
Fruits and vegetables are some of the most important foods we eat! As we celebrate the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables in 2021, it’s important to remind ourselves once again of the essential role fruits and vegetables play in keeping people, communities, and the planet healthy.
Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cucumbers – some of the freshest vegetables you can find! – have a natural tie to our nutrition, food security, and sustainability. From what we eat to how it’s grown and distributed, it’s clear that fruits and vegetables have a huge impact on our quality of life. That’s why it’s so important that we understand and recognize the incredible value fruits and vegetables bring to us all!
We know one thing for sure: you can do a world of good with good food. Let’s dive deeper into the important relationship our greenhouse-grown vegetables have with nutrition, food security, and sustainability.
Greenhouse-Grown Vegetables & Nutrition
There’s a reason that health experts say half your plate should be filled with colorful fruits and vegetables—our bodies need the essential vitamins and nutrients that these fresh foods contain to stay healthy!
At Nature Fresh Farms, we grow vegetables that are full of health benefits. Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cucumbers are incredibly nutritious, providing people with a healthy dose of vitamins and antioxidants like vitamin A, vitamin C, lycopene, and beta-carotene. These are just a handful of the many nutrients that help our bodies grow and give us energy.
Another great health benefit of fresh fruits and vegetables is hydration. Many vegetables, especially Cucumbers, have a high water content, making them both hydrating and nutritious!
While eating healthy foods like fruits and vegetables is a key part of nutrition, there are other lifestyle choices you can make alongside eating nutritious foods to boost your overall health. Exercising, practicing mindfulness, and drinking lots of water are just a few of the great lifestyle choices that work together with healthy eating to maximize its benefits.
More Nutrition Resources
There are so many ways we can eat more fruits and vegetables! Check out these resources to help you prioritize nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices.
How to Keep Your Whole Body Nourished
How to Support Your Immune System with Fresh Veggies
Pre-Workout & Post-Workout Eating
Greenhouse-Grown Vegetables & Food Security
Fruits and vegetables also have a big impact on food security in our communities. Being food secure means that you have reliable access to enough food that is both healthy and affordable. Since fruits and vegetables are an essential part of a healthy diet, it’s important to our food security that we can eat enough fruits and vegetables without having to worry about barriers.
An important part of food security is ensuring all people, no matter where they live, have convenient access to healthy food, as well as understand where it comes from and why it’s good for us. People who grow up in different communities face different barriers to food security, including cost (when healthy food isn’t affordable), convenience (when healthy food isn’t available near them), or education (when all the benefits of eating healthy food aren’t communicated).
As we continue to expand our reach and bring more Nature Fresh Farms facilities to communities throughout North America, our farms can grow healthy food that feeds more people! From expanding our Distribution Center in Leamington, ON, to starting distribution and farming operations in Laredo, TX and Central Mexico, we’re working hard to make greenhouse-grown vegetables as easy to access as possible.
But we can’t forget that nutrition education needs to be just as accessible as nutrition itself! A lack of nutrition education programs means nutrition and food literacy skills aren’t being practiced enough—leaving many people, especially children, unable to develop critical healthy eating habits. That’s why we created the Growing Minds Education Program: to inspire healthier eating habits in kids so they are set up for success!
If we want to continue building strong and healthy communities, it’s clear that we all have a role to play in helping others overcome food security barriers.
Greenhouse-Grown Vegetables & Sustainability
Farmers have known for centuries that how we grow impacts the health of our planet. But the natural resources like land, soil, and water that farms have always used to grow our food is becoming even more important to preserve and protect. That’s why greenhouse farms like ours have committed to growing our vegetables as sustainably as possible!
Growing better involves finding new ways to use our resources responsibly. Water – a fundamental part of farming – is one of the most important resources that we need to manage well. With millions of plants to feed every day, we need a smart watering system that gives our crops the care they need while preserving as much water as possible. Our closed loop watering system does just that: it brings as much water to our plants as they need to grow tall and strong while collecting, cleaning, and clearing extra water for continuous trips around the greenhouse. It’s through this system that we can save millions of liters of water every growing season!
But it’s not just water that greenhouse farmers treat with extra care: we’re just as responsible with other important resources like land and bugs. Vertical growing is one of the best ways to grow more food with less space, and using good bugs to fight pests helps us protect our plants using natural methods.
When growing vegetables to feed millions of people, it’s essential that farmers give special care to both their plants and the planet!
More Sustainability Stories
If you want to learn more about how we grow vegetables better and care more for our people, plants, and planet, read more of our sustainability stories below.
Growing the Most with the Least
Curbing Food Waste Across our Farms
The Importance of Fruits & Vegetables
It’s simple: we can’t talk about our nutrition, food security, or sustainability without talking about fruits and vegetables. So, let’s celebrate the important role these fresh foods play in our lives, not just in 2021, but for years to come!
