Fruits and Veggies-Bayer Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Eating a healthier diet is up to us … and the farmers who produce our high-quality foods.
Kelly Bristow, registered dietitian with Bayer Crop
Sciences, says they have a vision of “Health for All and Hunger for None” … which encourages everyone to eat more vegetables …
BRISTOW … “Having gone to school for many years to study human nutrition, get to spend a lot of time thinking about fruits and vegetables, and how can we get consumers to eat more of them, because we are under consuming them as a whole food category. So I get to wear a couple of different hats within there, one being to connect fellow dietitian, which I am to agriculture, but then also getting to think through strategy around, how can we increase consumption of fruits and vegetables? What kind of nutrition is available in fruits and vegetables, and how can we communicate that out to our farmer customers as well as to consumers.
And, Bristow says to get healthy foods, we need to start with healthy farmers …
BRISTOW … “It's also for us to encourage farmers to not only think about how they're growing that nutritious crop for the end consumer, but also sharing information why it's important for them to eat the fruits and vegetables they are growing as well.”
But Bristow says we can’t have one without the other …
BRISTOW … “Because if farmers aren't healthy, we're not able to have them in the field growing nutritious foods. So we're really working at Bayer as well through education and connection, through our vision of health for all, and hunger for nine to also encourage farmers to take a step back and think about their own health.”
Bristow says this is all part of what Bayer Crop Sciences calls the Nutrient Gap Initiative.
