patients to modify their lifestyles. This is a relatively new way of thinking about health—
and certainly not one that I learned in medical school. But the connection between individual health and the health of the natural environment is now so compelling that it’s spurring community organizers, city planners, and public health officials to advocate for a new kind of neighborhood. Across the country, from New York City to Detroit to Oakland, we’re witnessing the transformation of communities from gray to green with growing networks of gardens, parks, and urban trails. Greening projects can have an especially big impact in disadvantaged areas like the Canal neighborhood, where 86 percent of residents qualify as “very low income.” The goal is to mitigate health disparities between poorer communities and affluent ones—and research shows that increasing access to nature can help.
THE EDIBLE REWARD In community gardens, the most obvious health benefits come with the harvest. It’s hard to believe that a “food desert” could exist in
Marin County, an area so well known for organic farming and bountiful markets that it’s often called the “food bas- ket of San Francisco.” But as I pulled off Highway 101 and made my way to the Canal neighborhood, foodie Marin was nowhere to be seen. Instead, check-cashing centers and car repair shops lined the roadway. The first people I met after stepping through the garden gates were Elsa and Gabino, a middle-aged couple in the midst of watering their raised-bed plot. They told me that their main motivation for joining the garden was to grow their own fresh vegetables. “You go buy these organic in the market and they are
three to five dollars a pound,” said Elsa, pointing at the last of her habaneros. “Who can afford that? So we grow our own. This summer we had so many we had to give them away.” Elsa said that before becoming gardeners, she and Gabino ate far fewer vegetables because the produce sold at the grocery store was often both expensive and of poor quality. According to recent studies, gardens may accomplish what grocery stores cannot: getting people to actually eat their veggies. Simply building new supermarkets in areas with low access to healthy, affordable food does little to boost vegetable consumption among residents. But eating habits change when people grow their own produce.
56 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2014
Jill Litt, a public health professor at the University of Colorado, compared the diets of gardeners to non- gardeners in some of Denver’s lowest-income areas. Litt found that 56 percent of community gardeners ate the recommended five or more servings of vegetables per day, while only 25 percent of non-gardeners hit this target. Other researchers have documented the same pattern
among varied age groups in other urban areas, including Detroit, the Bronx, and Toronto. One study at a school- based garden in Berkeley, California, showed that communal gardening is especially effective at developing a child’s appreciation for “difficult” vegetables, such as spinach, beets, and squash. While these findings are obser- vational (as opposed to experimental), they suggest that the hands-on experience of gardening—regardless of factors such as income or education level—can improve the way people eat. And yet, I still wonder if gardens like Canal might do
more than just get people to eat their vegetables—provid- ing deeper nourishment than each crop’s per-serving dose of vitamin C or beta-carotene. Consider the fact that most of the studies linking gar-
dening to vegetable consumption took place in areas where most outdoor plots lie dormant for six or more months a year. Even at the Canal garden in sunny San Rafael, where food crops grow year-round, it seems unlikely that the five-by-ten-foot beds—mostly managed by novice garden- ers—could possibly produce enough fruit and vegetables to significantly boost the supply of fresh food for the surrounding community. Furthermore, many of the stud- ies I’ve found surveyed gardeners who grow flowers and ornamentals, not produce. How could gardens of seasonal or even inedible crops do more for community health than a supermarket offering fruits and vegetables seven days a week, twelve months a year? Spending time among the Canal gardeners offered some clues.
“THIS PLACE IS GOOD FOR THE BODY AND SOUL” “Here are some plants that can grow in the winter. Aquí están algunas plantas que pueden crecer en el invierno,” said Daniel Werner, addressing a circle of gardeners in both English and Spanish. Daniel is a former AmeriCorps volunteer who now holds a permanent position with the Canal Alliance as a project coordinator. As his audience looked on, he set out seed packets, seedlings, and organic soil in
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68