Food and Friends: Healthy Meals Delivered to You
Amber working on prepping vegetables for a batch of Good Bowls
At the beginning of 2024 Equiti Foods was included on a Human Foundation grant awarded to UNC’s Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM). The grant funded a program called “Food and Friends: Healthy Meals Delivered to You”, and worked to address the problem of social isolation and loneliness, as well as food insecurity among older adults in the Triangle region.
The study was led by principal investigator Dr. Lindsey Haynes-Maslow, Associate Professor in HPM and co-principal investigator Dr. Alice Ammerman, the founder of Equiti Foods/Good Bowls and Director of UNC’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Alice and Lindsey have been colleagues for many years, and Lindsey heard about Good Bowls during the early stages of development. She proposed a research collaboration testing distribution of the bowls to older adults along with weekly friendly phone calls from UNC volunteer “student companions.”
The Good Bowls production team at Weaver Street Food House making an industrial batch of Good Bowls
As a healthy frozen meal based on the Mediterranean diet and locally sourced and produced, Good Bowls fit well with Lindsey’s research about food insecurity, healthy food access, and social interaction. Lindsey knew about Good Bowls in the early trial days, and now that they are available in a variety of culturally tailored flavors, in institutional quantities, and with a delivery infrastructure in place, the “Food and Friends: Healthy Meals Delivered to You” program seemed like the perfect opportunity to team up with Good Bowls and Alice.
The “Food and Friends: Healthy Meals Delivered to You” study had two components; one that examined the growing social isolation problem in our society, and the other addressed food insecurity among the aging population. Leading up to the study, UNC Department of Family Medicine had been screening patients for food insecurity and then referred eligible patients to the “Food and Friends: Healthy Meals Delivered to You” program.
Students packing food boxes for the Food and Friends: Health Meals Delivered to You program
Participating older adults were divided into two groups. One group was paired with a UNC volunteer student companion and they spoke on the phone once a week and also received a box of 7 Good Bowls delivered to their home weekly. The other (control) group received 7 Good Bowls weekly and was not paired with a UNC student companion.
Ray Cheever, an MD-PhD candidate at UNC’s School of Medicine, helped to oversee the group of about 15 UNC student companions that came from a wide variety backgrounds that included both undergraduates and medical students. Ray helped the group of students set up weekly check-in calls with their older adults that lasted about 20 to 30 minutes. Ray said that after a few weeks in the program both the students and participants really valued the ‘intergenerational connection’ and that older adults were particularly interested in hearing about the lives of students in today’s age.
UNC Student Madi Robertson packing boxes and getting ready for delivery
During the course of the program, over 60 seniors in the area received a weekly delivery of 7 Good Bowls to their home. Madi Robertson, a UNC MPH student helped coordinate the deliveries and often spoke to participants about their meals. As expected feedback on the meals varied widely with some saying the meals were too spicy, some saying they needed more flavor, but the majority agreeing that they were delicious and just right.
A recurring theme in the feedback was that older adults wanted familiar southern flavors. Good Bowls are based on the Mediterranean diet and adapted for local taste preferences including flavors such as Carolina BBQ Chicken Bowls and Farmhouse Mac and Cheese, there were still participants asking for more southern comfort classics with meals that included chicken, green beans, and good ole’ mashed potatoes. Madi learned quickly that for the program to succeed, Good Bowls would need to ‘meet the community where they’re at with food preferences.’
With our new feedback, the Good Bowls team went to work, replacing spicy flavors like Jerk Chicken in the home deliveries with those more enjoyed by this population like the Chicken Burrito Bowl. Our kitchen team also worked hard to develop new recipes such as Salisbury Steak and Meatballs and Mash. By the end of the study, many participants were looking online for how to make the recipes at home, asking where they could buy Good Bowls after the program, and some sharing Good Bowls with their neighbors.
Aiden Fox with a batch of meal boxes ready for delivery
As the student companion part of the study progressed, students really got to know the participant they were working with. Students said that some older adults were a bit shy at the beginning of the program but by the end, conversations grew longer, sometimes lasting over an hour. Ray noted that in the final weeks of the study, ‘everyone was sad that the program was ending.’ For Ray, the social isolation component of the study struck a personal chord and he recounted that, ‘this is a real need, I saw this with my relatives, and this shines a light on an issue that truly exists today.’
Dr. Haynes-Maslow was very encouraged with how well the intergenerational component worked in this study. Both the older adults and students seemed to get a lot of fulfillment from the companion calls. She was also excited with how well Good Bowls worked for the food element of the study. She noted that ‘food is a part of a family tradition and heritage and is a great way to bring people together.’ Participants appreciated how the healthy meals were adapted to their traditional flavors and preferences. Lindsey also noticed how happy older adults were to have frozen meals, this is due to them often worrying about food spoiling in their refrigerator and being wasted, so the fact that they could store Good Bowls in the freezer and not worry about spoilage was a strength.
Thinking about the future, Dr. Haynes-Maslow and her team are busy analyzing the study results right now and will publish a paper in the coming months. Depending on the preliminary results for this pilot study, a future study could include a multi-year program where students and older adults could sit down and enjoy a Good Bowl together and truly bond over a delicious and healthy meal while making a long lasting relationship.
Farmhouse Mac and Cheese - a vegetable packed version of the classic that is a long-time favorite
Drs. Haynes-Maslow and Ammerman hope that the “Food and Friends: Healthy Meals Delivered to You” study can serve as an example for additional programs in the future as society tackles new public health issues. They are excited that this program combined the fields of public health, the health care system, and private industry. Both Drs. Haynes-Maslow and Ammerman believe that to solve the public health issues of today and tomorrow, all three sectors need to work closely together.
In the meantime, here at Good Bowls we will continue to feed a variety of communities throughout North Carolina with delicious, healthy, and locally sourced meals. We hope that the lessons learned and recipes developed in this pilot can also help make future Good Bowl recipients feel cared for and respected.
