SANDRA MURRAY: I’ve been a dietitian for 30 years. I spent my first few years working in a hospital, then in food industry for 12 years, and then for the last 15 years, I’ve been here in Tasmania. I’m now very much into preventative nutrition and working with communities around food security and sustainability.

CD: What brought you to Tasmania?

SM: I fell in love – met a man down here and saw the amazing produce we have in Tasmania and realised not everyone has access to fresh fruits and vegetables. So I became a lot more interested in why that was and got involved with the local food movement, looking at the reasons why and what I could do to contribute to it from an advocacy perspective.

CD: And what did you discover?

SM: Dietitians have a big role to play around helping improve food access, particularly healthy fresh fruits and vegetables to those who are more vulnerable than your average middle class type of person.

I now work at UTAS but I’m speaking as a dietitian, independent of the university. I’ve done some research with colleagues and we’ve looked at the cost, affordability and availability of food in Tasmania, particularly local fresh fruits and vegetables.

What we’ve found is that, from a geographical perspective, if you live regionally or rurally, it’s very hard to get access to fresh fruits and vegetables because we’ve got a number of food deserts in Tasmania.

If you live in the North-East where you have Dorset - they produce some amazing vegetables, but if you don’t live in Scottsdale or Bridport, it’s really hard to get access to fresh fruits and vegetables, so you have other coping mechanisms.

In the North-West, we grow lots of fruits and vegetables, but again, if you don’t live near a large supermarket, it’s hard to get access to those foods, particularly if you don’t have a car or you don’t have public transport.

Similarly, in the northern suburbs of Launceston - Rocherlea for example, there’s certainly a bus but there are no large supermarkets. There’s an IGA, but if you don’t have a car and you’re not prepared to carry heavy fruit and vegetable bags home, then it’s tough to get them home to cook them. But there’s certainly fast food chains out there that you can get takeaway food from.

CD: So fast food is available and easy, but fruit and vegetables aren’t so accessible to some communities?

SM: We’ve got this Tasmanian food paradox here - we’ve got the best food in the land but we’ve got the worst health outcomes.

In those communities I’ve been talking about, we see some of that there, and it is all about access to those fresh fruits and vegetables, whether it’s geographical because of where you live, or whether it’s financial, so whether you can afford to buy it.

CD: The obesity coalition released a strategy with recommendations to target weight-related illnesses this week. What’s your take on those?

SM: The obesity strategy came out with recommendations on a national level. On a state level here in Tasmania, if we start on a local level - I see local government as having a really strong role to play, and they’re moving in this direction.

I see perhaps the likes of Launceston greater region starting to establish more food hubs. We could see more community gardens out there, more markets as well in perhaps some of our communities where it’s hard to get access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

We’re trying to do a similar thing in the North-West and I know they’re talking about it in the North-East as well – a food hub where small-to-medium sized farmers might want to bring their produce into a central place and then people can go there to get access to those fruits and vegetables.

Another option is around food skilling and knowledge as well. Traditionally we’ve talked about food literacy, which is about reading food labels, but that’s not enough. We need food systems literacy where people and young people understand where food comes from - from paddock through to plate and the process food goes through so they understand it.

CD: What do you think of the state government’s five-year preventative health strategy?

SM: It’s nowhere near enough and it’s really disappointing. I’d like to see a lot more money put into preventative health and into really addressing the food insecurity issues we have here in Tasmania, because what we know is, if we can increase somebody’s consumption of vegetables by at least an additional two serves - and the average Tasmanian might only have one or two serves of vegetables a day, and that’s probably potato and something else - but if they could increase their consumption by at least two more serves, that would actually help resolve a lot of our food insecurity issues and help alleviate some of the issues around chronic disease, such as type two diabetes.

CD: What sorts of things would you like to see established and supported by the government?

SM: I’d like to see school gardens and healthy school canteens become mandatory, rather than voluntary, because I see our young people as the future, and if we can actually get them thinking that fruit and vegetables everyday is normal, then that sets up a really positive future for us. Hopefully they will then pass that onto their parents through pester power and hopefully the cycle will go on.

CD: How should the government approach this?

SM: My understanding from the present government’s perspective is they’re relying on individuals to take responsibility, and from my perspective, that’s very out-of-touch and a very old way of thinking. We need to take a social determinants of health approach. We’re looking at the cause behind the cause.

Whilst some people might say, ‘no, it’s your responsibility’, let’s take a step back and have a look at those that might be in a more vulnerable situation, who don’t have the income coming on - what can we do to set up a supportive environment for them so they can make those healthy food choices that they need to make but perhaps can’t because of where they live or their own personal circumstances

CD: Why is it important to support those people and try to get the chronic illness rate down?

SM: Chronic illness costs the state government millions of dollars. If I look at the cost of, for instance, food insecurity on the health dollar, some studies that were conducted elsewhere, but we’ve related it to the Tasmanian context – it could be an additional cost to the Tasmanian healthcare system around $60 million a year potentially.

So for people experiencing even marginal food insecurity or severe insecurity, it costs the taxpayer a lot of dollars because what we know is, not getting access to fresh fruits and vegetables is potentially a predictor of someone’s health outcome from a chronic disease perspective.

CD: Why is that?

SM: If you’re not eating fresh fruits and veggies, you’re likely eating something else that’s a tummy filler that might be leading to a chronic disease, such as very high processed food, whether it might be pasta or something else, because they’re going for something cheaper and filling. But it doesn’t provide the extra vitamins, minerals and fibre that that person needs.

If we can focus on relieving the issue of food insecurity, making sure people have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, then that’s going to help the health dollar, support a preventative health approach and hopefully we’re going to have a healthier Tasmania.

It may not be tomorrow because preventative health takes quite a long time, but in five to 10 years, we’re going to see the results of it. We have to be patient though.

I’d like the preventative health budget to be listed from 0.05 per cent to 5 per cent at least of the health budget.