What to donate to food banks: healthy, fresh, seasonal foods

An Ottawa food bank is asking donors to stop dropping off expired items and junk food.

The Parkdale Food Centre believes that everybody deserves good quality food. Kraft Dinner and hot dogs just don't fit the bill.

According to the centre's official site:

"We encourage our food donors to partner with us to promote a healthier diet for our neighbours in need. Please donate foods you eat and feed your family. Whenever possible please donate fresh, local, and seasonal items."

"Dunkaroos, I wouldn't give that out," says Karen Secord, coordinator of the centre. "It's not part of a healthy diet.

"And this, I don't know what that is but I wouldn't give it out," she tells CTV News as she holds up four packages of candy and an opened container of Hot Rods.

"It is sending the message out to people that you are not worth it, that your health isn't worth as much as my health is worth."

Food bank clients agree:

"We are people who would like to eat properly and feel better about ourselves and by eating better, you feel better," Joeann Tourangeau, who has come to the food bank with her granddaughter, tells CTV News.

Secord isn't just intent on giving her clients good food. She wants to teach them how to make it, too. She recruits local chefs to offer free classes to the centre's clients.

She says that when the Ottawa Food Bank forwards her centre unhealthy food items, she doesn't hesitate to send them back.

"If we're getting it from the Ottawa Food Bank, we send it back," she says. "So that would be salt, sugar and fat. Anything that's expired, any kind of chips, any kind of candies, desserts, sweets-type things. We would send all that back. We also would never, ever give out pop."

Earlier this week, a Hamilton man posted a photo of the food he got from his local food bank, which included ice cream bars, chewing gum, coffee-flavoured yogurt and "all the energy drinks (he could) want for a decade."

"I was looking for some potatoes, rice, vegetables, possibly fruit, or anything I could cook up as a few meals to get me through this rough time, but no," he wrote on Reddit, according to the Hamilton Spectator. "The (stuff) they gave me is not even food."

In 2012, Chris Riddell shared his haul from the Daily Bread Food Bank with The Grid.

While he received a hamper that technically included all the food groups, "the bulk of what's here is high in carbs, salt, or sugar," he wrote.

According to a 2007 study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, a survey of 30 hampers from Southwestern Ontario food banks revealed that "99% of hampers did not provide 3 days worth of nutrients."

The researchers' recommendation:

"Nutrients missing from the hampers can come from fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and meats and alternatives. However, many low-income families have limited finances to purchase these foods which are relatively more expensive than processed foods. Encouraging more perishable food donations and storage facilities to maximize the nutritional intake for clients is imperative."

The next time you plan to donate to your local food bank, look beyond the usual non-perishable-only lists — canned fruit, pasta and pork 'n' beans — and commit to providing food-insecure households with nutritious options.

The London Food Bank asks farmer's market shoppers to purchase extra produce and donate it. They also have a "Plant a Row, Grow a Row" program in which food-bank supporters grow an extra rows of veggies in their home gardens with the intentions of donating the harvest to the London Food Bank.

At an event in July, Toronto's Junction Farmers Market raised thousands of dollars for its food voucher program. On market day, voucher recipients can purchase their own fresh produce.

In North Toronto, the North York Harvest Food Bank requests donations of "culturally-familiar and nutritious foods" in areas serving ethnic communities:

"A Flavours from Home drive encourages participants to reflect on their relationship with food and to donate non-perishable food items that are a part of their own diets. In essence, the drives seek to leverage diversity within the community in order to increase the variety of food available to people accessing food banks."

Still not sure what to donate to your local food bank?

Get some ideas from Parkdale Food Centre's "Good Food List," which includes baking ingredients, healthy cereals, condiments, canned beans and tomatoes, fresh fruits and vegetables, baby food, rice, oatmeal, spices, milk, cheese, eggs, fresh chicken and beef, coffee and tea.