Florida Hospital’s food helps feed needy in area

The pot roast is a favorite — slow-cooked, tender and savory without being salty. Then there’s the popular Parmesancrusted tilapia, the spicy sweetand-sour chicken, the hearty mushroom stroganoff.

We’re not talking restaurant fare here. This is hospital food — specifically, Florida Hospital food — and in a new partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank, it’s now helping to feed people at Central Florida soup kitchens, homeless shelters, respite programs for the sick and charities that serve people with disabilities.

Until now, it’s also food that would have ended up in the garbage.

“In many ways, it’s some of the most significant food we receive,” said Greg Higgerson, Second Harvest’s vice president of development. “Florida Hospital has a real commitment to fresh food and healthy food prepared in a tasty way.”

The donated meals are fare cooked for the hospital’s patients, visitors and employees but never served. Instead, the surplus is carefully packaged, labeled, frozen and then picked up by refrigerated Second Harvest trucks, which typically

take it straight to the shelters and charities.

Tennille Yates, a Florida Hospital registered dietitian who helped to launch the effort, said the hospital emphasizes whole grains, vegetarian meals and nutritionally hearty food that tends to be low in sodium and saturated fat. But that doesn’t mean bland.

“We employ chefs — not just cooks, but culinary [school]-trained chefs,” she said. “We take pride in the

food we put out there, and it’s evidenced by the number of employees who choose to eat in our cafeteria instead of frequenting nearby alternatives or bringing their food from home.”

The hospital also has its own bakery that makes bread from scratch. Surplus loaves also are donated to the food bank.

Yates said the aim is not just to feed the hungry or prevent food waste. It’s also to interrupt the link between what’s called food insecurity — never knowing how you’ll afford your next

meal — and chronic disease. Federal researchers have documented a correlation between poverty and obesity, particularly for women, and obesity often leads to high-blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

“This food is intended to address those underlying concerns,” Yates said.

Second Harvest’s prepared-food program — called Second Helpings — didn’t begin with Florida Hospital. It dates to the early 1990s and a partnership with Walt Disney World’s restaurants and hotel kitchens. The initiative

worked so well, Higgerson said, it soon expanded to other restaurants, as well as the region’s convention center.

Last year, it added up to about a million pounds of prepared and perishable food from 30 locations. But the Florida Hospital partnership is a first with the health-care industry.

“The saying ‘food is medicine’ is really true,” Higgerson said.

The donation process involves a strict protocol. No food that has been exposed to the public — such as in a salad bar or deli case — can

be used, and the temperature must be monitored throughout. Once it is deemed surplus, it has to be packaged, labeled, frozen and served again within about 48 hours.

The hospital rolled the program out slowly, starting at its Orlando campus in March. From that single location, the hospital was able to donate about 1,500 pounds of food per month.

And this month, it added the Florida Hospital East campus. By year’s end, Yates said, all seven campuses within metro Orlando and many thousands of pounds of food will be involved.

“It’s a huge blessing for us,” said Sara Trollinger, founder and president of the nonprofit House of Hope, a residential program for troubled youth, one of the recipients. “We get no government funds, so we’re totally dependent on private donations, including the help we get from Second Harvest. And because we serve teens, they’ve got hollow legs. They have very big appetites.”