Jill and Keith Forester snack on a fresh melon with their son Fox. “Fox’s world is very big for a two-year-old,” Jill says.The Green Rocket is a community driven news co-operative focused on environmental and public health. Our goal is to connect local passions to regional issues through reader-supported journalism. Our coverage strategy is the opposite of traditional newsroom models. We will start with public input, then discussion and debate through an editorial board comprised of subscribers, reporters and businesses. Then we’ll assign coverage. Through sharing information and directly engaging communities in coverage decisions The Green Rocket will create an innovative new “news ecosystem” that overlays the environmental ecosystem of the Mid-South.
Poor nutrition is a fact of life in the Mid-South leading to a variety of health problems from obesity to diabetes. “When you have a limited income, you have to buy foods that are cheap. And foods that are cheap tend to have a lot of sugar and salt and fat,” said Dr. George Bray, an obesity expert at Louisiana State University. At least 30 percent of adults were obese in thirteen states including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. The same four states led the country in the rates of diabetes. >read more
