An Apple a Day, Courtesy of Your M.D.

Forget the aspirin; the doctor's got a new trick up his sleeve. Make that an old trick, as in the oldest remedy for ill health known to man: healthy food. That's right — physicians are now prescribing, with slips of paper and all, fruits and vegetables for unhealthy patients.

In Massachusetts, doctors at three health centers have begun recommending farmers' market produce to overweight patients from low-income families. And while their "eat better" reprimand is nothing revolutionary — how many of us dread the inevitable inquisition about our dietary habits at the end of each medical check-up? — the mechanics of the food intervention are nothing less than innovative. One word: coupons.

Doctors "will give coupons amounting to $1 a day for each member of a patient's family to promote healthy meals," reported the New York Times last week, and then "track participants to determine how the program affects their eating patterns and to monitor health indicators like weight and body mass index." The goal, according to Dr. Suki Tepperberg, one of the family physicians testing the vegetable prescription pilot project, "is to get them to increase their consumption of fruit and vegetables by one serving a day."

Low-income families are prime buyers for unhealthy, processed foods. Sure, these products are artery-clogging, but they're also cheap, as a result of being mass-produced, using cheap labor, passing costs onto the environment (including, notably, the very same low-income people who live in factory neighborhoods and suffer the ill-effects of rampant pollution), and benefiting from federal agricultural subsidies. (More on that in blogger Greg Plotkin's detailed post on food insecurity and at the Sustainable Food blog.)

Compare that $5 Stouffer's box of macaroni and cheese with a couple beefsteak tomatos and see which one sounds like a better deal — and a tastier meal — for your money.

"Can we help people in low-income areas, who shop in the center of supermarkets for low-cost empty-calorie food, to shop at farmers' markets by making fruit and vegetables more affordable?" asks Gus Schumacher, the chairman of Wholesome Wave, a Connecticut-based nonprofit that helps poor communities access locally-grown produce. The Massachusetts project could offer a resounding yes. If the Massachusetts project pans out, "farmers' markets would become like a fruit and vegetable pharmacy for at-risk families."

Better health and better food at a lower cost? Sign me up. Write me a prescription.

Photo credit: Selma90