Empty Calories Fill Cupboards Program
Promoting healthy eating for local food pantry beneficiaries and their donors.
Our Mission
E.C.F.C. participants are prompted to become aware of the kind of foods they are purchasing, especially what is known as “empty calories.” Empty calories leave your wallet and your stomach — empty. This program highlights the poor nutritional and financial habits of buying nutritionally useless — though perhaps sweet, tasty and attractive — products, so that consumers in the community could find a way to serve their own household while also serving the more needy households. Everyone learns; everyone benefits.
E.C.F.C. Program Steps:
Look at what you buy for your own pantry, and see how much of your grocery order is "empty calorie" or junk food.
Add up the cost of the empty calorie foods and decide how much of that total expenditure you would like to cut back to leave room in your budget for more nutritious food. Of course, not all of the junk food. Everybody likes to have fun food too!
Decide on a percentage of that reduced empty calorie food expenditure and use the money to buy nutritious foods for not only your pantry, but also to donate to the local food pantry. We learn; we give; we all eat better food!
Copyright © 2011, Harvard University. For more information about The Healthy Eating Plate, please see The Nutrition Source, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, www.thenutritionsource.org, and Harvard Health Publications, www.health.harvard.edu.
The Living Bread Food Pantry in Plainville, MA
"The church has a newsletter where we list what is needed by the pantry. We also have a Facebook page (Living Bread Food Pantry - Plainville) where we occasionally list something we really need. There is a page for the food pantry on the church website: http://www.plainvilleumc.net/. On this website the YMCA created a list of healthy items that can be donated to pantries." ~ Becky Simon
Becky Simon is the head coordinator at The Living Bread Food Pantry.
Tracking Participation: If you would like to participate in the E.C.F.C. Program, please press the "Take Action" button!