Actress Nikki Reed Touts Healthy Eating, Natural Food Website

— -- Actress Nikki Reed plays a vampire on the hit franchise "Twilight," but off-screen, she's promoting healthy eating options for families in need.

One of them, she said, is Thrive Market, an online marketplace that sells all-natural foods at 25 to 50 percent below retail price. She is a spokeswoman for the marketplace.

For Reed -- who married 36-year-old "Vampire Diaries" star Ian Somerhalder last month -- the issue hits very close to home.

At a farmers market, the actress said that the fresh items there were "a totally different world" from what she grew up eating.

"I had a single mom, a single mom who made ($15,000) 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," she said.

For Reed's mother, buying fresh food was too expensive.

"I actually worked in the cafeteria in exchange for free lunch," Reed said.

Because of her past, Reed is working to make a difference for others who may have challenges similar to those she experienced as a child.

Although it's a common belief that it's costly to eat healthy, Reed said there are alternatives.

"They do make it easy and you know ... my family growing up, this is definitely something my mother would have loved," Reed said. "If my mom had something like Thrive Market as an option for her ... then it would have been a whole different ball game."