UK growers The Watercress Company are offering a free weekly supply of watercress in exchange for participating in their campaign to promote its health benefits.
The novel experiment is looking for athletes, chefs, dieticians and foodies as well as people undergoing medical treatment to join the TWC’s ambassador programme and trial upping their watercress intake.
Each ambassador receives a free regular weekly supply of watercress fresh from the company’s farms in Dorset and Hampshire, a consultation with The Watercress Company’s development chef, Keri Astill-Frew and updates on the latest medical developments and research relating to watercress.
In return, The Watercress Company requires participants to give them a regular update as to how they are getting on, what recipes they have tried, how eating more watercress makes them feel and share their findings online through blogs and social media.
TWC say around 10 people have already signed up, including award winning chef Steve James. Another ambassador joined to see if eating more watercress will help with her son’s eczema, as well as a runner who wants to find out if it aids recovery by reducing DNA damage incurred by exercise.
Tom Amery, MD of The Watercress Company said the programme wanted to engage more with their customers to create an original survey of how watercress can benefit our health.
“A surprising number of people don’t fully understand the level of medical research that has been uncovered by scientists globally. We have been recruiting ambassadors locally, but calls made direct to Scotland and Wales have been well received and this will progress to other regions in the coming weeks.
“We’re keen to recruit as broad a church as possible from professional foodies that use it all the time, to sportspeople to see if eating more watercress improves their performance, families who simply want to improve the quality of the food they eat, to those undergoing medical treatments such as chemotherapy and or radiotherapy.This group is of particular interest following some very promising research published this summer available on our website regarding breast cancer patients. But literally anyone prepared to embrace watercress with a passion is welcome!”
Anyone interested in becoming an ambassador should emailinfo@thewatercresscompany.comfor more details.To read the blogs of other ambassadors visit the Food Blog onwww.watercress.co.ukand for more details about The Watercress Company and their work with partners and research collaborations visitwww.thewatercresscompany.com
