March is National Nutrition Month, an opportunity to learn more about healthy foods and make informed choices in the kitchen and at the grocery store. At Lifelong, we prioritize nutrition every day because we know our community’s health depends on it. For our neighbors living with serious and life-threatening illnesses, it is crucial to have access to nutritious food to help manage their health. We’ve also learned that the best health outcomes happen when people have access to food that is both familiar and nutritious.
Lifelong’s food and nutrition program, Chicken Soup Brigade, provides nutritious food through medically-tailored meals and groceries that we deliver to neighbors in need. In the past couple of years, we’ve expanded our food selections to include culturally-appropriate nutrition, so that our clients from diverse backgrounds have more healthy options using recipes and ingredients that are familiar to them.
Out of the 900 nutritious grocery bags that we deliver to clients weekly, we have three culturally-appropriate options which account for around 20% of our total grocery bags. These specific groceries support Asian Pacific Islander, East African, and Latinx communities, and we also have options for those with specific dietary and medical needs.
In every grocery bag, clients receive two types of grains, a shelf-stable fruit, vegetable, and protein, at least two fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen protein, eggs, and milk. For our healthy standard grocery bag, a client might receive whole grain pasta and apples, whereas in our Asian Pacific Islander bag, they might receive rice noodles and mangos instead.
“For clients who grew up in different cultures, it can be totally bizarre and unappetizing to eat American staples,” Dave McKillip, Chicken Soup Brigade’s Warehouse Manager, explains. “Every day, I do my best to expand our network of food providers to get nutritious food that our clients will enjoy and are relevant to these specific communities.”
Dave says he’s been most excited about being able to work with local farmers to provide more culturally-relevant produce that can otherwise be more difficult to find in larger quantities from our usual supply chains.
By working directly with farmers, we can get produce that expands our clients’ menu of nutritious ingredients beyond what they might typically consider. We include a note that describes what the produce is, what it tastes like, how to store it, and a recipe you can make with it. “Most recently we have been getting sunchokes, which look like ginger but taste like a nuttier potato.”
We are incredibly proud to offer more variety to our neighbors living with serious and life-threatening illnesses, but we cannot do this work without support from our community.
You can help expand access to nutritious food for your neighbors’ health by sponsoring a culturally-appropriate grocery bag or by volunteering to put together or deliver grocery bags with our Chicken Soup Brigade Team.