Feeding a Healthy Community

by LYNDA

Local farms grow healthy food, which grows healthy locals. And locals who buy healthy local foods make for healthier local farms. This all makes for a healthier local economy.

For nearly 30 years, Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities, formerly known as Michigan Land Use Institute, has been putting the healthy local food + people + farms equation into action, expanding the region’s food economy far beyond farmers markets and into Northwest Lower Michigan’s schools, food pantries, restaurants and grocery stores.

But until recently, there was one field where Groundwork hadn’t fully sowed its local food love: the region’s healthcare system. As it turns out, it was fertile ground, and physicians—and their patients—were hungry for help.

See, despite the massive role proper nutrition plays in preventing disease and promoting longer, healthier lives, most physicians can’t do more than recommend their patients eat “better.”

With the average patient-provider visit clocking in at 20 minutes, few providers have the time or bandwidth to explain what “better” means, let alone create meal plans or show patients how to select and prepare the variety of fresh foods a healthy diet should include. Providers are busy enough managing the conditions and chronic diseases poor diets cause—high blood pressure, diabetes, certain forms of cancers and cardiovascular disease, the latter of which caused more American deaths (800,000) in 2020 than even Covid-19.

“It’s unfortunate the way our healthcare system is set up. [Doctors] get reimbursed for what they do; they don’t get reimbursed for prevention,” says Groundwork Community Nutrition Specialist Paula Martin.

Truth be told, doctors don’t get much education on prevention either. Despite four years of medical school, most physicians-tobe spend less than 20 hours on nutritional training.

While Groundwork’s changemaking mojo hasn’t targeted medical school curriculums or Medicare’s fee-for-service reimbursement approach (yet!), the organization launched a Culinary Medicine initiative that’s planted many a seed in the last decade to support local providers and patients through food grown and raised here at home.

Since 2014, Groundwork’s been creating opportunities for healthcare providers not only to learn more about local food access and nutrition at its Farms, Food and Health conferences but also to earn some of the continuing medical education credits they need to maintain their license and board certifications.

In 2019, Groundwork successfully secured a grant from the Michigan Health Endowment to support a Prescription for Produce program with McLaren Northern Michigan Foundation in Petoskey. And in 2020, despite the pandemic, Groundwork designed and ran “Dinner With Your Doctor,” a pilot program of six healthy-cooking classes for at-risk patients, held in the lobby of Munson Family Practice Center in Traverse City.

This January, you might say Groundwork’s Culinary Medicine seeds went full bloom: Groundwork teamed up with Commongrounds real estate cooperative to open a first-of-its-kind teaching kitchen—intended for use by local medical providers and eventually for other mission-aligned groups—in the co-op’s new four-story building on Eighth Street in Traverse City.

“The vast majority of teaching kitchens like this are owned by an institution,” Martin says. “Like a university or a health care system.”

In this case, the Esperance Community Teaching Kitchen is a part of a community-led, communityowned property. It’s owned and managed by the 800-plus members of Commongrounds Cooperative (of which Groundwork is a tenant/owner), alongside a steering committee of community health and wellness leaders. Groundwork oversees the kitchen’s programming.

And in line with that neighborly model (and the communal vibe-making that sharing good food tends to foster), the 600-square-foot facility, though state of the art, is specifically designed to look and feel cozy and unimposing—a lot like a home kitchen, says Jeff Smith, Groundwork’s communications director. It’s primarily meant to hold intimate classes of 15 or fewer, but thanks to a retractable wall, can easily double in size to accommodate larger classes.

So far, Groundwork has developed approved CME/CE courses for physicians, dietitians and nurses, but, Martin explains, the pool of professionals who require continuing education credits runs deep—to physical therapists, social workers, pharmacists and other allied healthcare providers, whom they’ll target next.

Groundwork’s continuing education programming is in partnership with Munson Healthcare and the Great Lakes Culinary Institute. A chef instructor and a dietitian will team up to lead each education session, so providers will get the nutrition science and culinary skill-building simultaneously.

“Then eventually, we’ll be opening up to anybody whose mission is aligned with ours,” Martin says. “If you’re working with schools, if you’re working with kids, or part of another healthcare entity, like Addiction Treatment Services, we’re inviting those folks to come into and rent [the kitchen], and we can provide consultation and help them develop a program if they don’t already have one.”

Also on the horizon: developing worksite wellness programs with Commonplace, the co-working space within the Commongrounds building; CSA drop-offs and cooking classes for subscribers; livestreamed cooking demos; and before the year is out at least two events for the community at large.

GET COOKIN’ WITH CULINARY MEDICINE

Mark your calendar for Groundwork’s upcoming Farms, Food and Health Conference happening Sept. 22–24, 2023. Can’t make it? Find culinary medicine presentations from the 2019 conference on Groundwork’s YouTube channel: @GroundworkCenter.

“You know, Groundwork’s mission in our food and farming programs is to make sure that we have markets for local farms, right? To sustain farms, we need to make sure people are buying and using and knowing how to use the local product,” Martin says. “The overarching goal of the kitchen is to get people more used to cooking with local foods.

“If we can get more and more people in the community turning to locally grown food,” Martin adds, “we strengthen our local food economy, we strengthen farmer income, we preserve farmland, and by doing that, we strengthen the overall community. Our farms are stronger economically, and our people are healthier.”

Interested in learning more about the Esperance Community Teaching Kitchen, Groundwork’s initiatives or how to bring basic principles of culinary medicine cooking into your home kitchen? Visit groundworkcenter.org.

Lynda Wheatley is an award-winning writer specializing in stories that showcase Michigan travel and recreation, history, and the passionate folks who make this place so extraordinary. ltwriter.com

Dave Weidner is an editorial photographer and videographer based in Northern Michigan. Follow him on Instagram and Facebook @dzwphoto.