Ashe Food Pantry

At Ashe Food Pantry we attempt to provide healthy food products for our clients. We appreciate the benefit of educating our clients in healthy food choices and preparation. To that end, we provide handouts about recipes using foods we are distributing, and about the My Plate website by the USDA. This handout shows proper proportions of food from each food group. For Example, half of every plate should contain fruits and vegetables. Offering a lot of fruits and vegetables in our pantry, along with displaying My Plate graphic can inspire people to eat healthier. When shopping, it can encourage people to choose whole grains. and explains how replacing sugary beverages with water can be an extremely valuable part of better health.

In acquiring food for the Ashe Food Pantry, we use these guidelines:

Food Group	Healthy Options	How We offer More Healthy Choices
Fruit	Fresh fruit is great, but if you only have access to canned try to find options with light syrup	We distribute fresh produce when available, and frozen and canned fresh is not available
Vegetables	Look for fresh vegetables or low sodium canned vegetables	We distribute fresh vegetables when available and shop for low sodium canned vegetables
Grains	Whole grains are the best option.	We provide whole wheat pasta, rice and some breads
Protein	Whether it is a canned protein option or meat, find low fat, low sodium options	We provide frozen meat and eggs, and some canned meats
Dairy	Shelf stable 1% milk or non-fat dry milk is always a great choice	We distribute fresh milk and cheese