Minnesota clinic offers free fresh produce

A health care clinic in Red Wing is giving out fresh bags of fruit and vegetables to its uninsured or underinsured patients. Julie Mallion is the executive director of Care Clinic in Red Wing and she joins us now. Hi, Julie. Hi. Thanks for coming on the show. So it's so wonderful what you're doing. You're giving away bags of fruits and vegetables based on the household size. So clearly you guys see fresh food as key to health. Tell me about it. Yes, absolutely. I think we need to get used to thinking about healthcare as being holistic, just thinking about our bodies, not only what our doctors can do for us, but what we can do for ourselves. In this challenging time where groceries are so expensive, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, we just really wanted to help our patients have more access to those fresh, healthy choices that they have. So what prompted you to start this program? Because I'm sure a lot of your patients, they are underinsured or uninsured. So I'm sure that they get some food benefits like SNAP benefits. Why did you feel like there was still a need for you guys to step in with some fresh fruit and vegetables? Yeah, so the idea really began from a partnership that we have with Mayo Clinic health system so they've always been a great partner of ours and one of the doctors who volunteers here also works at Mayo Clinic was really interested in doing a research project about can people can patients really improve their like control of their glucose prevent diabetes from occurring if they have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and so a couple of years ago we started that research project with Mayo Clinic and they also provided a grant that supported us purchasing the fresh produce for our patients and then we ran the program for a couple of years collected the data and it really showed that it is effective in helping people to delay or avoid going from pre-diabetes to diabetes and then more recently we were able because we thought research was so positive we wanted to expand the program beyond just our patients who have pre-diabetes or diabetes to all of our patients so we've partnered with our local food shelf the Red Wing area food shelf and Taylor Farms Foundation provided a grant for us so that we can open it up to all of our patients so we have medical dental mental health um Medicare navigation services here so even our patients who are coming for a dental cleaning they can pick up a bag of fresh produce on their way out and that really helps them to improve their health so what makes What makes this different from a food shelf? Well, I think the food, our local food shelf is really making an effort to try to bring food to the places that people could really access them and use them. And so they, we actually both were Treasure Island, Island Impact, Charity of the Month this last year. And so what they did with their project was actually to get a refrigerated vehicle where where they can start to bring the food from the food shelf out to locations like us. And we're the first place that they're partnering with. And then we also were Treasure Island, Island Impact Charity of the Month. And so through those grant funds, we're able to supply the refrigerator, the refrigerated truck and those fresh fruits and veggies for our patients. So I think it's really that idea of making things as accessible as they can be for people. not everyone always feels comfortable maybe going into a food shelf but they're coming to their clinic for their local health care and so it just makes it easy to make those healthy choices I think it's also based on this program called that's the evidence-based and so if a physician prescribes a certain number of fruits and vegetables servings a day so five is the recommended and actually gives the patient a prescription to take that almost like you would in medicine that actually increases the consumption of fresh fruits and veggies that people have and so we kind of pair it with the doctors the nurses are talking with our patients about the importance of this and then they can go to our fresh food pharmacy and actually fill that prescription so it's also that is a benefit from having that program right here in the clinic where they the patients really get that education that the choices that they're making in eating really affect their health and they're in control of that. Interesting, if the doctor prescribes it, you're more likely to do it. I mean, I can see why. I'm curious, has there been more demand for this program that you're offering since recent laws have tightened up, SNAP eligibility requirements and put in some work requirements? Yes, absolutely. I think definitely our patients are more grateful. they're sharing stories about how challenging it is for them to purchase these healthy options on their own and so just really grateful for having that access. I also love to see kids that come in for their dental cleaning and then they go in the fridge and grab an apple and they're you know chomping on the apple as they're walking out the door that's great for their health too. So yeah definitely an increase I know our local food shelf is really seeing an increase in demand as well as some of those SNAP benefits are removed or decreased. So it's just a great way that we're partnering with each other as nonprofits and with our patients to really help us all have a healthier community. Do you know if any other health clinics in the state are doing a program similar to this? I know of some that are getting started with that, and that was part of the reason why we wanted to do this research. and actually our program was selected to be presented at the Mayo Clinic Family Practice Symposium last year so that more communities can be inspired by the fact that this works and this can really help patients and to improve their health and so I believe we kind of had modeled our program after a clinic in Winona and there's some more local efforts starting here. I'm also work with the county a part of the community health needs assessment and this is one of the big priorities that they have chosen for this next year is to increase the number of clinics where they're doing these VeggieRx programs. Wonderful. Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. It's so important. Healthy foods, eating whole real foods is so important and can save lives as your research has showed. So Julie from Care Clinic in Red Wing, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you so much for having me.