Ventura, CA - Ventura County Public Health and Food Share of Ventura County are hosting a healthy food distribution event and community garden grand opening to celebrate the first annual national Food Day on Monday October 24, 2011. The event will be held in Oxnard at the Camino Del Sol community garden, at the corner of Camino Del Sol and Garfield, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Activities will include free produce distribution and healthy food cooking demonstrations.

Resource tables on obesity prevention programs, health coverage options, and Cal Fresh and WIC programs will also be available. Supervisor John Zaragoza and a representative from Congresswoman Lois Capps’s office will be at the event to welcome families and help distribute the produce that Food Share is donating.

Food Day is a national campaign to celebrate healthy, affordable foods produced in a way that is aimed at promoting healthy, sustainable, affordable, and fair food systems in America. Spearheaded by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day is organized around six main policy goals:
1. Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods.
2. Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness.
3. Expand access to food and alleviate hunger.
4. Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms.
5. Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids.
6. Support fair working conditions for food-service and farm workers.

“When 63 percent of Americans are obese or overweight, 25.8 million of them children and diet-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease are skyrocketing, it’s hard to ignore the problem,” says Dr. Robert Levin, Public Health Officer.

Diet-related health is the most visible, and talked about problem, but there is a lot more to food than
meets the eye. Food Day draws attention to: food deserts (areas where fresh, healthy, affordable foods are scarce), the wages of workers in the food system, the consequences of concentrated animal feeding operations, the importance of sustainable agriculture, and the type of food-messages targeted at our children.