Nikki Reed backing new food delivery system to promote healthy eating

Actress Nikki Reed has made it her mission to help low-income families eat more healthily by backing a new organic food delivery system which grants free groceries to those in need for every paid membership it receives.

The newlywed Twilight star reveals she knows how tough it can be for parents facing financial hardship to provide healthy meals for their children after having to eat junk food day after day as a kid, because it's all her mother could afford.

She recalls, "I had a single mom, who made $15 (thousand) to $17,000 a year, raising two kids in Los Angeles. It was hard. We ate a lot of fast food and we ate a lot of what came off the Dollar Menu.

"I actually worked in the cafeteria (at school) in exchange for free lunch."

Reed is now encouraging people to sign up to services like ThriveMarket.com, which provides residents access to organic produce at wholesale prices for a $59.95 annual fee.

Each new subscription allows company bosses to sponsor a poor family and provide them with much-needed healthy food.

She explains, "There's this association now that if you try to eat healthy, it's just too expensive. So it's a misconception, sort of, right? Because there are other options.

"(ThriveMarket.com's services) do make it easy and my family growing up, it's definitely something that my mother would have loved. If my mom had something like Thrive Market as an option for her, then it would have been a whole different ball game."