Limoneira Co., Santa Paula, Calif., launched Nature’s Pharmacy, a new consumer app designed to educate consumers on using food as medicine.

The app helps consumers identify fruits and vegetables in grocery stores that can help solve certain healthcare issues.

“At Limoniera, we know that good health and maintaining balance continues to be important to all of us, and that produce and citrus can be critical to this balance,” says Harold Edwards, president and CEO. “We understand that people are busy and looking for solutions that are easy to incorporate into their busy lives, and the Nature's Pharmacy app does just that. Limoneira is proud to be a leader in educating consumers about how to eat their way to optimum health naturally.”

Limoneira cross-tabulated 55 health concerns, including the need to increase good cholesterol, prevent cardiovascular disease or ease insomnia, as well as desired outcomes, such as improving energy levels or reducing wrinkles, with 74 fruits and vegetables. All of these foods, which can be found in the produce section of most grocery stores, contain 12 essential vitamins and 11 essential minerals that address these concerns or help with desired outcomes. By selecting a concern or outcome, the app then generates foods in the produce aisle that can help consumers achieve their health goals.

The app is just one of several educational platforms to be launched as part of Limoneira’s new Take a Healthy Stand platform, which showcases the many ways that citrus and produce can play a role in helping to alleviate serious health issues and enhance personal appearance and wellbeing.

“Nature's Pharmacy and Take a Healthy Stand are important components of the food as medicine movement taking hold nationwide,” says Megan Roosevelt, nutritionist. “Food as medicine maintains that fresh, healthy produce such as lemons can help avoid an expensive and perhaps less effective trip to the grocery department's supplement aisle.”