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Building Healthy, Equitable Communities
Building Healthy, Equitable Communities
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Healthy Food

Overview

Healthy Food

Creating vibrant complete neighborhoods helps make the healthy choice the easy choice. Making it easier for people to access healthy food and beverages includes having affordable, fresh, local, and culturally appropriate foods at grocery stores and farmers markets. Complete neighborhoods also have space and resources to grow food in schools and neighborhoods, accessible clean drinking water, and access to school gardens and garden-based education for children.

General information

Making the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice

The food around us influences how we eat. This is our “food environment” which is the food that surrounds us in our neighborhoods, in our schools, and in our workplaces.

We all know eating healthy food is an important way to stay healthy. But many people don’t have access to quality healthy food or know which foods are healthy and how much to eat. 

Low income communities often don’t have grocery stores. Instead, they have convenience stores that mostly sell junk food, soda, and other unhealthy food and beverages.

General information

Creating a Sustainable Food System

San Mateo County is rich in agriculture, yet most of the food grown here is not available to our residents. Instead, the food is processed and sold outside of San Mateo County, which limits local access to fresh and healthy foods, increases our carbon footprint, and takes valuable dollars out of our community and sends those resources elsewhere.

General information

Reducing Sugary Drinks in San Mateo County

In many places in San Mateo County, its easier to find sodas or other sugary drinks than water. Countywide, nearly one in three children and one in six adults in San Mateo County drink one or more sodas each day.

Sugary drinks are extremely dangerous because liquid sugar absorbed very quickly — in as little as 30 minutes — forcing the liver to convert it into liver fat that leads directly to diabetes. We’ve seen this here in San Mateo County, where there has been a 250% increase in diabetes over the last decade.