El Pasoans Fighting hunger’s SWAP system teaches people to make better choices

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- Deciding what items to put in your cart that will also be nutritious for your body can be a challenge. El Pasoans fighting hunger has created a system to make shopping easier.

SWAP which stands for Supporting health Wellness At food Pantries is a system that allows every item in the food FARMmacy to be analyzed to calculated to see how much sugar, fat and salt is in each item.

Based on the levels of those three ingredients, the system determines whether the item will be have a red, green or yellow label. Just like a traffic sign, red means stop, yellow means slow down and green means go for it.

Louie Salazar, the nutrition initiatives manager at El Pasoans fighting hunger, says the food FARMacy supports individuals that are dealing with a diet related chronic health condition.

"This could be anything like diabetes or hypertension. And individuals that come to the food FARMacy are able to select healthy food options from a variety of options that we have here at the food FARMacy that is anything like healthy, you know, fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains." Salazar said.

Participants that come to the food pharmacy are referred to us by their primary care physician. For more information visit El Pasoans fighting hungry