Charma's Green Chips
Six years ago Charma Dompreh was watching the news and was appalled to learn about the extent of the country’s obesity crisis. The former teacher promptly came out of retirement to try to make a difference in her Flint community, starting with the kind of snacks available to her fellow residents. She began investigating her local markets and was shocked to find a lack of healthy alternatives, so she decided she would just have to make her own.
Dompreh rolled up her sleeves, underwent raw food training at the Creative Health Institute in Union City, Michigan, and went on to create her own line of dehydrated kale chips. After experimenting with flavors she developed Knutty, Spicy, Cheesy and Crunchy
Sweet lines that now are sold in Dale’s Natural Foods, the farmers’ market in Flint, in Whole Foods supermarkets around the state and in Detroit’s Eastern Market. The vegan and gluten-free snacks have proved so popular that she has moved on to collard greens as well, introducing packets of sweet, spicy and crunchy greens.
For Dompreh, finding and creating a solution to unhealthy eating was a simple equation. “It’s like I always told my students: Any time there is a problem in society, you need to find out how to solve it,” she says.
It is indeed a challenge. Michigan has the 10th-highest adult obesity rate in the nation with over 30% of the adult population suffering from the condition.
Dompreh says the issue is particularly felt in the Flint area, where three major grocery stores have closed in recent years, diminishing access to fresh produce. “We are in a food desert,” she says.
She is part of a community movement pushing fresh produce, participating in pop-up markets and hosting fundraisers, and she hopes to stock her chips in any new grocery stores that open in the region. Dompreh says her produce helps get people on the right track. “A lot of people from the community have shared with me that they want to change their diet,” she says, “and that when they buy my chips that’s a starting point.” Detroit residents want to eat healthy,
Dompreh insists, referencing their sellout days at Eastern Market. She says it’s about getting the wider community on board, from healthy-eating education in schools to church groups participating in urban gardens. Detroit’s FoodLab helps a lot, too, she believes.
Discovering raw and organic trends was eye-opening for the 69-year-old, who admits she has gleaned a lot of information from her daughter’s generation. “It’s a new day,” Dompreh says. “I learned a lot from the millennials. I had to step back and listen because these are the people driving the market.”
Now, Dompreh likes to source her ingredients from local urban farmers—including Flint gardener Roy Fields—and she has also started growing her own at Meekins Farm. She’s currently tending to 48 kale plants that should be ready in August. “I wanted to go through that experience,” she says.
