Photography courtesy Food Outreach
Imagine teriyaki salmon, fresh green beans, and a fruit salad for dessert arriving at your door, ready to eat. The best part? It’s all tailored to your diet. For patients with type II diabetes, a meal like this is not just a treat, but a lifesaver.
A new pilot program jointly led by Food Outreach and Mercy is connecting diabetic patients experiencing food insecurity to the nutritious meals they need to manage their condition. Food Outreach executive director Julie Lock says the organization provides the equivalent of two free, medically-tailored meals per day to eligible patients, who can opt to have the meals delivered to their home, or have them available for pickup at the Food Outreach grocery center in Midtown.
Photography courtesy Food Outreach
“Diabetes and nutrition go hand-in-hand,” adds Gretchen Shull, Mercy’s medical director for diabetes care. “We find patients that are in need and unable to obtain particular versions of nutrients that support their diabetes care, and then connect them with Food Outreach.”
Shull says food and nutrition insecurity is a big deal, and many foods with sustainable shelf lives are not the best for maintaining blood sugar control in patients. For Mercy, the biggest challenge in launching the program was “understanding the geography” of the situation.
“There’s a big portion of patients we serve, particularly in the St. Louis area,” Shull recalls. “We have to figure out which ones to help first and how to make sure that we’re not leaving out the ones that really need us. So, we’re just taking it one chunk at a time to figure out who to serve first.”
The program is open to volunteers to help prepare the food, and Shull says Mercy’s volunteers have told her it’s been “extremely rewarding.” Since launching the program earlier this month, she and Lock are hearing positive reviews from patients, who appreciate that such a program exists. Having high-quality, healthy meals provides a feeling of security that many have wanted.
“More than 82 percent of our clients live on less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level, which means they live on less than $14,000 a year,” Lock says. “The services that we provide are at no charge to our clients, so they can use their extremely limited resources for other things like housing, utilities, phone—things like that.”
Already, there is optimism for the program’s future. Lock hopes Food Outreach will be able to help more patients, and Shull hopes for an expansion to gain the attention of more people in the Midwest.
“We need a lot of attention,” Shull says. “I just hope we can continue growing.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Food Outreach is the only organization in Missouri, western Illinois, and most of the Midwest that provides nutrition supporting treatments for diabetic patients. Christian Hospital launched a pilot program in 2021 that provides selected diabetes patients with nutritious prepared meals.
