It is about time we realize that the way in which we have been handling health care is not the most effective one. More and more research and advances lead to more complex medicines and treatments. But truth be told, the root of the problem has been pretty much ignored for decades. The answer to our health crisis has been sitting in front of us and we haven’t acknowledged it as we should have all this time… Food is the best medicine there is, and farmer’s markets offer the best quality food we can get.

Recently, some health care centers have turned their heads toward the connection between healthy eating and disease prevention. May this be the beginning of real change? May we be approaching that future Thomas Edison talked about when he said “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”?

Nature’s Rx: Farmers’ markets cropping up at hospitals

Hospitals and health clinics have pharmacies for their patients, but why not add a place to pick up vegetables and fruits, too?

After years of treating their clientele for the ravages of poor nutrition — obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke — some doctors finally are catching on to the idea that prescribing carrots instead of pharmaceutical drugs might be a better option. It’s preventive medicine 101.

The Harris County Hospital District serving Houston, Texas, and its surroundings is among just a handful of health organizations that have incorporated a full-fledged farmers’ market into its facilities. The reasons are many: Most of the patients coming to its clinics are poor; their neighborhoods are largely devoid of grocery stores selling healthy foods and instead are filled with fast-food outlets and small shops selling snacks; and many of those people with access to supermarkets either cannot afford fresh foods there or do not understand basic nutrition.

As a result, the poor and middle class living in these murky food swamps, where unhealthy food is cheaper and more plentiful than healthy food, suffer disproportionately from high rates of obesity and related diseases. A doctor’s advice to “eat better” is essentially useless given these circumstances. [Diabetes & Obesity in America (Infographic)]

The Harris County Hospital District has partnered with a Houston-based nonprofit organization called Veggie Pals to offer fresh vegetables and fruits at a subsidized price, to compete with the cheaper food options in these patients’ neighborhoods. The easy availability — it’s just down the hallway from the doctor’s office — is coupled with advice about the benefits of these foods and how to prepare them.

Since its start in November 2011, the program, called Healthy Harvest, has sold more than 5 tons of produce, according to Ann Smith Barnes, the medical director of the hospital system’s Weight Management and Disease Prevention department. The program is offered at five facilities and is growing.

Kaiser Permanente, based in Oakland, Calif., is a hospital system that has pioneered workplace farmers’ markets, albeit originally for its workers and people in the community, not necessarily for its patients. Kaiser Permanente’s program started more than a decade ago at its Oakland headquarters with just a simple, weekly market on its sidewalk featuring local farmers’. The program was a hit and has since spread to dozens of its facilities around the country.

Elsewhere, nonprofits are working in poor communities to enable the use of food stamps at farmers’ markets, where typically only cash is accepted. Some programs try to sweeten the deal by doubling the face value of the food stamps so that shoppers can buy twice as much produce.

Truth be told, many vegetables aren’t necessarily more expensive than fast food. A one-pound bag of carrots costs only about 60 cents; peeled, these carrots can be a healthy, sweet snack for pennies a day. And now at a health clinic near you, you just might hear a doctor say, “Take two carrots and call me in the morning.”