Increasing fruit and vegetable intakes through community collaboration and theory driven cooking demonstrations at a local farmer's market in a low-income neighborhood

Most Americans, particularly those who are low income, are not meeting the recommended requirements for fruit and vegetable consumption. The diffusion of innovation theory was used in the development of healthy cooking demonstrations at a newly formed farmer's market in a low-income urban neighborhood. The farmer's market was developed through collaboration between a local non-profit, the city government, academicians and local food growers. The purpose of the demonstrations were to 1) encourage intake of local produce and foods of local residents using tailored recipes that incorporate foods available at the market and 2) increase farmer sales by incorporating market available produce into the demonstrations. Impact measures included market attendee's perception of the demonstrations using an adapted DOI questionnaire and pre/post market fruit and vegetable intake. There was a significant increase in fruit and vegetable intake (N= 32, p<.01) from the beginning of the market (M=16.03, SD = 4.94) to the end (M=23.84, SD = 4.49). Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between DOI score and number of cooking demonstrations (p = .02) and farmer's markets attended (p = .04) as well as fruit and vegetable intake and cooking demonstration attendance (p = .04) was observed. Farmers indicated that the cooking demonstrations and recipe dissemination positively influenced sales. In conclusion, this study indicates that several community entities working collaboratively can positively impact health behaviors as well as local economic growth. Future studies can provide further insight into the contribution community driven farmer's markets including nutrition education has on the overall community.