Live music, healthy, aphrodisiacal foods, ideas on how to help your heart and maybe your love life, will converge today at the Valentine’s Day themed Farmer’s Market.
Campus Health, Nutritional Sciences and Life and Work Connections have teamed up to create healthy heart day at the Farmer’s Market. The event will have health and well-being demonstrations that will inform visitors with the best ways to care for their hearts.
“”The typical American diet includes foods heavy in saturated fat, heavy in sugars, low in fruit and vegetables, no whole grains, no nuts and no beans,”” said Nancy Rogers, coordinator for Worksite Wellness and Health Promotion. “”To be heart-healthy, you need foods low in saturated fat and no trans fat.””
Held every Friday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the Farmer’s Market is located at the UA Main Gate Square on University Boulevard between Euclid and Park avenues.
This week, the Farmer’s Market is centered around providing heart-healthy Valentine’s Day gift ideas.
Some ideas include a raspberry jalapeno jelly from We B’ Jamin Ranch, used to spice things up between you and your Valentine, and “”Sensual Love””, a vegan and organic chocolate containing five aphrodisiacs, said Gale Welter, coordinator and founder of the Farmer’s Market.
Information on how to find healthy foods known to be aphrodisiacs, or “”Love Foods,”” will also be provided.
Caviar, for example, is high in zinc, stimulating the formation of testosterone, which maintains male functionality, and ginseng increases the desire for physical contact, said Mallory Jordan, assistant coordinator of the Farmer’s Market.
Rogers said the market will have an informative display, demonstrating what a healthy heart diet looks like, as opposed to a typical American’s diet.
Along with the display there will be a replica of what five pounds of extracted human fat would look like, which is used to visibly show the amount of body weight that is lost after losing five pounds.
“”The point is to show exactly what a heart-healthy diet looks like,”” Rogers said. “”Monitoring food is extremely important. Heart disease and diabetes are preventable to a certain degree. It is a message we want to tell people. You can make a difference.””
From noon to 2 p.m., there will be four tables with nutrition information and live acoustic music from Matthew Hay-Roe.
“”What makes the University (Boulevard) Farmer’s Market different from any other farmer’s market is that we are involved, we provide these nutrition tables,”” Jordan said.
The food people chose to eat can play a valuable role in every aspect of their life, Rogers said.
“”We have to wake up, the food choices we make really make a difference, what better time than now?”” said Rogers.
