Produce grown on hospital-run farm helps stock ‘food farmacy’

Before he started going to the food farmacy, George Vickers, 55, lived in a food desert — he and his wife lacked access to fresh produce.

For the past five years, since Advocate Trinity Hospital started operating the Healthy Living Food Farmacy out of Bethany Lutheran Church in Calumet Heights, Vickers has picked up a bimonthly box of fresh fruits and vegetables.

“It’s been a tremendous experience, and showed us the importance of whole foods,” he said. “We live in food deserts, so it has helped in many different ways. Especially with the cost of food nowadays, and how the things that are nutritious cost a great deal.”

Now Vickers, a self-proclaimed “recipe guy” in his retirement, loves to make soups, salads and learn new ways to prepare cabbage, as a slaw or pan-seared.

Tony Hampton, family medicine doctor at Trinity, said the service is not just to provide food, but to teach patients which foods are best for them and won’t make their medical conditions worse.

Most of the food is donated from the Chicago Food Depository, but as of this past summer, some produce comes from the Smart Farm at Trinity’s sister hospital, Good Shepherd, in Barrington.

This week, the leaf greens and onions were harvested on Monday to be delivered 60 miles south to the food farmacy. About 200 clients were served at the farmacy Wednesday.

“We can now take this land and create a model where we provide some of that food, and maybe as we are doing that we teach the community this is where food comes from; that it’s not just from Jewel,” Hampton said.

Between the food farmacy at Trinity and the Smart Farm on the Good Shepherd campus, Advocate Health has been working to mitigate health outcomes for food-insecure patients, and for those with nutrition-based illnesses, like diabetes or high blood pressure.

Nearly a half-million people, or 9.2%, in Cook County are food insecure, meaning they lack access to sufficient food, either geographically, financially or both, according to 2021 data from Feeding America. In Lake County, over 68,000, or 9.8%, of people experience food insecurity, Northern Illinois Food Bank data says.

If the hospital provides food, and people understand where it came from, Hampton said. He hopes people will start to value nutrition as a way to heal.

“Our goal is, if we’re going to help people live well, we can’t be disease managers,” he said. “We have to be people who help people heal and reverse disease.”

A hospital-owned farm

On two acres of land in Barrington, more than 50 different crops with almost 100 varieties of produce are grown, to then be harvested and donated to local food organizations, including the Healthy Living Food Farmacy in Calumet Heights.

Produce from the Good Shepherd Smart Farm is delivered to nearby food pantries in Carpentersville (and Barrington. Weekly farm stands are also held at the farm and inside Good Shepherd, with fresh-picked produce available for purchase to help fund farm operations.

“We have the luxury of sitting on all of this land,” said Jasmine Everett, director of hospital services at Good Shepherd. “Right now, we look at how much food insecurity takes place all over. Being one of the largest health care organizations, it’s our responsibility to not only take care of folks when they become ill, but to work on the preventive as well.”

Good Shepherd started handing out food vouchers for the Smart Farm to patients who present as food insecure. The program, which began two weeks ago, is still in the pilot stages; ultimately Everett anticipates the hospital system will be able to clinically track health outcomes for patients who utilize the vouchers over an extended period of time.

On average, the Smart Farm provides 15,000 meals per year. But in just the second season of the hospital-owned farm, Good Shepherd leadership is gearing up to expand the farm’s operations with the goal of providing 150,000 meals per year.

Chloe Goodman, manager of the Smart Farm, said the plan is to expand incrementally over the next five years to 15 acres of farmland.

The hospital owns 60 acres, but some acres were leased by industrial farming for cover crops like corn and soy, so the soil needs to be transitioned to nutrient-rich, organic soil before the farm can grow on that land.

The farm has received significant community support, according to Everett, with lots of people interested in the work and expansion. At a recent barn dance fundraiser, Everett said almost $400,000 was raised for the Smart Farm.

“It went from ‘why are we doing this,’ to ‘why haven’t we been doing this,’” Everett said, referring to the hospital-run farm. “A lot of times, people think of health care as operating rooms and nursing units, but how can we prevent those people from getting there?”

Food as medicine

Rosa Alonso, 62, is a patient of the farmacy, but also volunteers behind the scenes at the farmacy packing up produce for patients. For Alonso, it’s a way to maintain community connection while giving back.

Alonso learned about the food farmacy after attending a heart health class at Trinity Hospital aimed at reducing hypertension in the Black and Hispanic communities.

Since her initial referral to the farmacy two years ago, she has become more aware of her health situation, has an incentive to keep track of her vitals, eats healthier and even reduced her blood-sugar levels.

“Before when I’d go shopping, I’d just buy meat and the regular stuff,” Alonso said. “Mexicans usually aren’t like, ‘let me make a little turnip salad.’ It’s more like stews and stuff like that. So then (the farmacy) has made me more like, ‘oh, let me make a big salad for the week.’”

Money Alonso would have spent at the grocery store, she now saves by going to the farmacy and to use for her medication.

Hampton has seen patients of the food farmacy make improvements in glucose levels, blood pressure, weight loss and even reducing the amount of medication they need to take after being prescribed to the food farmacy.

“Most importantly, I think we’ve seen people start to regain faith in the health system,” Hampton said. “If we have patients who have faith in what we do, then it’s likely that they may adhere to or take the advice we are giving them.

“So for us, that means a lot because if we’re going to spend a lot of resources and time trying to create support for patients, we need to make sure they’re going to get the buy-in,” he added.

Recipe cards are one way Hampton and Everett try to help patients learn healthy eating. Some recipes are culturally specific, while others focus on foods that are good for managing certain ailments, like heart disease or arthritis.

“Food is medicine, but it’s not a quick fix,” Everett said. “It takes a lot of experts, a lot of growing and a lot of support.”

Plans to scale the food farmacy — and its food supply from the Smart Farm — is the dream for Hampton.

But one of the challenges he faces is how to scale the program while maintaining the quality.

Hampton also noted food insecurity is not just a city problem, but also impacts the suburbs and rural communities. But those communities might need different solutions than what has been modeled.

Financially, both Everett and Hampton said by addressing nutrition and preventive care, money is saved in the long run if more expensive procedures or medications are no longer needed.

“I would like to live in a world where we’re compensated, in addition to providing care,” Hampton said. “But if we have outcomes that show we can reduce medicines and reduce the cost of care by doing this, that should be how we are rewarded. In other words, we’ve got to get buy-in from the insurers.”

Research that documents changes in health outcomes is the key, he said.

After five years of going to the farmacy, Vickers has seen his blood pressure drop and his wife, who is borderline diabetic, has seen her blood-sugar levels come down.

“This is a great program because it teaches clients how to reverse these things through proper diets,” he said. “If people would just take the time and learn these things, they could reverse a lot of things going on in their own lives.

Vickers is sharing what he’s learned with the next generation. His granddaughter’s favorite foods are apples and broccoli.

“I’m still a work in progress,” he said. “We didn’t do this overnight. People will say, ‘oh I got this new diet.’ No. It’s a way of life, so you have to change and be willing to change.”