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Trisha Rayner is the Chief Development and External Affairs Officer of the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Trisha and I met during my latest campaign for Global Food Justice Alliance. NFL player Markus Bailey and I teamed up to provide food-insecure kids in the Cincinnati area with healthy, protein-packed meat sticks.
The Freestore Foodbank is the largest emergency food and services provider to children and families in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana. With a network of 540 community partner agencies, Freestore Foodbank provides 37.7 million meals each year.
During this episode, Trisha explains that reliable protein sources are a consistent need of food banks around the United States. Many food banks and smaller food pantries have limited cold storage for perishable items like fresh meat and dairy products. Plus, many of the families served by these emergency food outlets also lack cold food storage and access to cooking facilities. These constraints make high-quality, shelf-stable proteins like meat sticks a perfect item for donation.
If you are curious about getting involved with your local food pantry or want to learn more about how food banks serve communities in need, this is a must-listen conversation. Trisha and I chat about:
- Trisha’s background
- How Trisha’s training as a dietitian is valuable in food insecurity
- Why protein is so important for food banks
- Freestore Foodbank programs
- Why the anti-meat narrative is harmful to those that are food insecure, especially kids
- Protein’s role in “health-span”
- The recently increased reliance on food banks
- Suggestions for protein items food banks need
- How aspiring dietitians can get involved
You can also watch this episode on YouTube: Episode 241: Trisha Rayner
Resources:
Connect with Trisha:
Website: Freestore Foodbank
Facebook: Freestore Foodbank
Instagram: @freestorefb
TikTok: @freestorefb
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.
If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome back to the Sustainable Dish podcast. Today I have with me Trish Rayner from the Freestore Foodbank, and I actually just got back a couple weeks ago. I was there with you. We were handing out some meat sticks. So it’s great to have you on the podcast, Trisha.
Trisha Rayner
Thanks for having me, Diana. It was great to see you and get to know a little bit more about you personally and also a lot of the work that you do, so I appreciate you having me on today.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and so for the folks who are listening who didn’t catch the news that I was out there. How I got connected with Trisha is that the NFL has a program called My Cause, My Cleats, and Cincinnati’s Bengals player, Markus Bailey, reached out to me. He saw me engaging in kind of a social media exchange, actually with a dietitian he knows. And we were kind of back and forth about something a little bit heated. And he was like, really into what my position was. And so he started looking around, realized I had a nonprofit reached out to me, said that, you know, he’s been in the NFL for a couple of years and never really participated in the My Cause, My Cleats because there just wasn’t a cause that he felt super passionate about. But once he saw Global Food Justice Alliance, he knew that that was something that he wanted to get behind. So he and I had a call, and asked me what we did. And I said, Well, we, you know, we educate people on the importance of animal source foods. And he said, great, great, great, but do you do anything like do you? Do you actually get meat into people’s hands? And I said, Well, I think that’s a great idea. Let’s make that happen. And so we came up with the $1 buys a meat stick for a kid. And he also was pretty passionate that this donation happened not just to any random location, but in Cincinnati in his hometown. And so that’s how we got connected with you because you run the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati. So that’s the backstory on how we got connected. And I had a great call with you and found out that you are also trained as a registered dietitian. So I’m so excited to have a dietitian, that it works in the food insecurity space. It’s something that I am so passionate about. And I’d love to, you know, just to… just talk about that, like how, how you see the role of dietitians in food insecurity? What led you to, you know, first become a dietitian, and then also, you know, start working at the food bank?
Trisha Rayner
Sure, sure. Well, again, thanks for having me on. And I said, you know, all the stars aligned with you and Markus having that great conversation. And certainly appreciate, you know, him… for him being from the area and growing up around here, his investment in the kids and families that are just in his backyard. So we couldn’t be more proud to have a local kid, young man, join us in that journey. It certainly goes a long way. So I thank you for helping raise the awareness of that work that you do globally, here locally with someone that’s very passionate about it. And you can tell that he is so… of course, he’s on the… on that life journey of wellness as well as we all are. And he certainly is kind of in the spotlight for that as he has to keep his body healthy, healthy for the work that he does. And so, you know, with the backgrounds that we have, we want all people to have access to healthy, nutritious, sustainable food. And certainly that includes, you know, recommendations from my plate and the USDA. But many people are always short on that protein part of it and kind of talk more about the fresh and healthy vegetables which have fruit fruits and vegetables, which of course we want people to have. So, you know, from that perspective, being in the community health space, I think it’s always important to talk about balance. First, how we get food into people’s hands and access and then talk about how we can make it in the most nutritious way possible. So we certainly want to make sure access and food is available to all people. There’s no reason in the United States that doesn’t happen in every corner of the US. But we also want to make sure it’s nutritious the food that people eat impacts community health. And so following some of those health indicators is also important to pay attention to, to make sure that we are building healthy communities. And certainly there’s disparity in that as well across the country and locally, that we need to pay attention to as well. So there’s lots of things that are wrapped up into that conversation, I’m sure. But as part of my journey, I’ve always been interested in health and nutrition. I said, I grew up as a child of two teachers. And so education has always been extremely important to the work that I do. And then just found my passion in nutrition and dietetics when I was in college. So followed that up with an MPA with a concentration in community health. And I’ve always been able to work in that space and look, really weave it into the work that I do with policy action items with working with long-term outcomes for community health, and also just day-to-day service of how do we actually get this done? So there’s a continuum of that, as you very well know, is what happens now? And how can we make sure that we make an impact immediately? And then what are some of those longer-term outcomes that we need to think about in communities? And how does that affect some of the work that we need to do from an advocacy perspective, and a policy perspective because some of those long-term strategies just take a lot of work to do. And I think that that’s important that everybody can not only get engaged on using their hands to help immediately, but also think about how you can influence others to be on that journey with you. So I know you work in that space a lot to help not only just do the work, but also advocate on behalf of others and advocate for the right choices, not just what’s convenient.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and we’re seeing we get there’s so much attention paid to fresh fruits and vegetables. And you know, here in Massachusetts, a few years ago, I did a podcast with a farmer who is a raises local meet year-round and participates in year-round farmers markets here, and was feeling really frustrated, because there was an incentive program where people could get double their money on only fruits and vegetables. And so the $6 pint of organic raspberries and the $12 bag of organic salad mix, you know, they could get… they got double their money on, but then here’s she was with much more nutrient-dense food, which was liver, ground meat, you know, locally raised year-round Massachusetts. You can’t grow raspberries and salad mix year-round. And they’re lovely things, but they’re not going to fill people’s bellies who are hungry, and they do not have the nutrient density. But somehow, you know, I saw this in my training, I’m sure you did, too. There’s this halo over raspberries and salad mix that meat doesn’t have. And it’s really unfortunate. And especially when we’re talking about hunger and malnutrition, the top nutrient deficiencies in the US: iron are among the top, B12. I mean, they’re all found best or only in animal source foods. Will you talk a little bit more about that kind of thing that you’re seeing with your work?
Trisha Rayner
Absolutely. And certainly I think when we talk about kids and families and those that are food insecure, we do talk about nutrient-dense food and food that lasts for a while. And not just in your stomach, but also from a shelf life.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. I mean, yeah, you’re… that’s a good point that I didn’t even bring up. But I mean, anyone who’s bought raspberries or salad mix, the salad might last a little bit longer than raspberries, but those raspberries are gonna go bad really fast.
Trisha Rayner
Yeah. So if you’re like me, the rest of us that buy those things, and we buy them frequently, you know exactly how many days you have before it goes into the freezer, that turns into the smoothie that you have to have. So right you can smoothie yourself to death with it, which was, unfortunately, what I do to my family, too, is if you’re just not eating it quickly enough. We certainly want people to have a variety of foods with vitamins and minerals that will sustain them. But we also have to talk about costs too. There’s cost associated, especially with protein items, that has made people shy away from that as well. So during the pandemic, it was certainly very prevalent that we saw those meat prices go extremely high. We see it in seniors who are making choices between getting something that is I don’t know, shelf-stable versus Can you throw your meat in the freezer and then divvy it up into portions that are good for you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So yeah, I mean, the reality is definitely a box of pasta or mac and cheese or something that’s more of a staple food is cheaper and people aren’t realizing that there’s a huge nutrition trade-off with that.
Trisha Rayner
Absolutely. And certainly, you know, when you talk about feeding and Feeding America across the country, we’re part of that network. And in our area, we have 20 counties. We have about 600 partner agencies which are you know, schools and clinics and, you know, local churches, a soup kitchens, the number one requested item is always protein across the board. And it has to do with cost. And it has to do with storage of it as well. So it has to be safely stored, you know, over the last of you have seen last 10 years, at least a lot of those have a lot of meat is able to be ready to eat meat, which is extremely helpful that food insecure people and those that are not do not have as much income, they have storage issues, cooking issues, we know that there are temperature issues, and that needs to play into the safety part of it. But there’s also that cost piece that, again, is it prohibits people from purchasing those items, and it’s stocking up on the cheaper items. So it’s trying to find a balance for that and trying to identify other areas of protein that we can infuse into the work that we do, and make that more prevalent and available for people who are choosing to go cheaper versus more nutrient-dense meat products, which I think is important for them too. But we see it a lot in seniors. And as you mentioned before, it’s certainly those deficiencies that we see across the country and B12 and iron and those things which can only come from protein sources. So again, it’s a community health perspective, as much as it is anything else. It’s access, and it’s nutrient-dense foods, so we can build healthy communities across the country.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, because when someone ends up with type two diabetes from eating these less expensive, packaged foods, that’s going to cost society as well.
Trisha Rayner
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
When we were starting my film, Sacred Cow, we actually the first all the stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor, just because it was such a complicated story. We were following some patients of Dr. Hallberg in… the professor at Purdue who also… yeah, and so she was putting all these people on a ketogenic diet trying to reverse type two diabetes. And the reason we couldn’t use any of that footage in the film was because it wasn’t just about following a low-carb diet. It was about the problems that people faced. We had one young man, he lost 60 pounds following a ketogenic diet, but he couldn’t afford school lunch. And so but the lunch that was provided was so high in carbs and so low in protein that it didn’t work for him. And so he was having to find just sausages, you know, that were shelf stable to bring to school. We had another woman who was disabled and a senior who was trying to do keto at a food bank. And we actually filmed her at a food bank trying to in her mobile chair, navigating the aisles trying to find that protein. And the reality is a lot of… this food bank did have a freezer and did have some meat, but it was just a huge, huge challenge for her. And so, you know, we just didn’t feel like we could tell that story on top of regenerative agriculture and ethics and all those things because being able to have access to protein is a huge privilege that a lot of people don’t have.
Trisha Rayner
Yeah, and certainly some of those shelf-stable protein items are critically important. And I would say that from a youth perspective, too, is that should be part of the package and part of the staple. I think when you’re here, we were talking about one of the schools that kids jump on the bus system in the morning, so they’re leaving their homes at six o’clock and we’re talking public transportation, not busing, as in the school bus. They’re there during the whole school day. They have academics, they have basketball, practice, whatever that may be afterwards and then taking the city bus home. So they could be at school for 12 hours. So one of our… one of our pantries is in there. And certainly they pay very much attention to what sustainable piece to get kids in a 12-hour period that can make it through the day and the availability to take groceries home with them for their family. So I would say that one which is always an interesting study is just 100% graduation, it’s 100% placement of kids going to college after that, that they pay very much attention to what is available for kids that is healthy and nutritious. It’s not just filling the shelf. In you know this too is you look at some of our protein bars and other things that you go and get for your own children. And you have to pay attention to that – to the items that are on there, because you’re adding more carbs, more sugar, more additives to those types of things that typically have been seen as popular items to put in a backpack or a snack pack. So it’s trying to find the balance of education and then access as well. So You know, that’s just for any family that’s looking for those not… and then think about on top of it is those that can’t afford to have those options or even have access to those items. So, you know, food banks look at those grocery gaps, and where we can infuse items, and looking at how they’re culturally appropriate in some of the communities too. And so we try to find that balance, we’re not always great at it, as we all are a work in progress. But you have to think about culturally appropriate foods and pockets of our community to and provide access to healthy, nutritious foods and proteins in those communities as well. So it is a difficult thing to do. But it’s certainly always on the top of our mind when we talk about food insecurity in our community is it’s not just any food. We want to make sure that that food is again, healthy, nutritious and well-balanced for someone who may not have access to other sources of food.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I mean, this is what’s so frustrating to me, and why I’ve written so many public letters, especially to New York Mayor Eric Adams, who has not only you know, they walked into the New York City public schools with Meatless Mondays, and then instituted Vegan Fridays, and a lot of people, you know, push back at me saying what’s wrong with some salad on Mondays? But that’s not my problem. I don’t, you know, it’s not about having a little more salad on Mondays, it’s about the message that these kids are getting that meat is not okay. And it’s about the fact that 70% of the kids that go to New York City public schools are either you know, low-income or homeless. So they’re going home to food-insecure environments. And now we’re flanking the school day, which is the whole point of the school lunch program is to provide nutrition. We’re flanking it with less nutritious items because it just can’t be as nutritious. It’s just not possible if you remove the meat to have the same level of nutrition. And then when we tell these kids that meat is not okay, you know, you think of a typical urban kid, right? Their favorite foods, what are they? Hamburgers, deli sandwiches, mac and cheese, hot dogs. So when you tell them meat is bad, it’s not like they’re gonna go get a $20 quinoa bowl with edamame and extra chickpeas on it. They’re just gonna go get a sandwich with no meat or, you know, something, or just the fries and a coke and maybe not the burger, which, you know, if you look at the whole landscape of their favorite foods, that burger patty…
Trisha Rayner
It’s the best option of all of them. Absolutely, absolutely. And so I think it’s, again, it’s variety of that too, is there’s others… there’s sources of protein that are certainly better than others. And so how do you kind of find that balance too is… I’m not sure the general public… I mean, that Meatless… the Meatless Monday message has been going on for years. It’s been going on for years in school districts and health departments. And again, not that we’re saying fruits and vegetables are bad, because they certainly are part of a well-rounded diet. But again, it’s that message of the protein… I was just thinking of the story that I used to work for… I worked for the YMCA for about 10 years, 10 or 12 years. And so worked with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and some community health policy projects. And also obviously health and wellness and fitness. And I was actually out in Boston at the Cybex headquarters where they make machines for large, of course…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Cybex, like those gym machines?
Trisha Rayner
Cybex arch trainers and yeah. A good friend of mine is locally here and he was the sales rep for this half of the country. So took us out there, you watch them being made and new models and of course, and the PhD that was in the lab testing people on these types of machine, we were just talking in general about movement and muscle and certainly you need protein for muscle and he said, muscle is one of the largest predictors of how long you can live in your home as you age, grip strength. muscle strength, will keep you in your home longer as you age, not saying how to be a bodybuilder not saying that you had to be super, super fit. It was muscular strength and grip strength of those muscles, help you catch yourself when you fall, right. Help you reach for things and help you do the daily activities that you do. And I found that so fascinating. And I tell that story quite frequently is because if you are not doing those things to address muscular strength and grip strength, don’t we all want to live as long as possible in the home that we have. And what an interesting way to think about not being a marathon runner not being again, a super fit person. It’s muscular strength and grip strength will keep you in your home longer as you age. And I’ve always it always resonated with me about what that means for your diet and your activity. In order for that to happen, it’s not a competition, but it’s just your own health that you need to pay attention to. So, again, it kind of swings back to that protein piece of it is you have to have protein to build muscular strength.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. And you know, it’s in people, you know, a meat stick for kids is certainly a compelling message. But when we think about seniors, like you just mentioned, the ability to digest protein declines as we age. And so our need for protein actually increases much higher than the RDA, which is the minimum. Yeah, not the optimal level, the minimum level. And you know, it’s not just about longevity, it’s about you know, healthspan not lifespan. So making sure those seniors are getting it and how many seniors, I mean, so many of them are low income and relying on, you know, these messages. And, you know, in addition to my frustration, with meatless Mondays and vegan Fridays, is that now health care without harm and the college for lifestyle medicine, are working with Mayor Adams to offer vegan meals as the first main option in all New York hospitals which is just so frustrating to me because you probably worked in hospitals as part of your training.
Trisha Rayner
I did.
Diana Rodgers, RD
But protein needs are much more increased as we’re recovering from something.
Trisha Rayner
For recovery. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And people listen to dietitian that might be the first time they’ve ever met a dietitian is when they’re going to a hospital. And so to have a hospital endorsing a message that is anti-meat is very disturbing to me.
Trisha Rayner
Yes. And that recovery period is so important too. You have to have those items. And again, digestible items for that recovery period. And in there are studies that say if you don’t do that your recovery period is longer. And we all know that health insurance company that companies have moved in a direction of, we don’t want people to go back to the hospital, we want them to be in there for a short period of time, we want to move them into the next part of it. And their work as even insurance companies is for that recovery period to be one as quick as possible and safe and healthy. But to not have to have increased insurance premiums, because you’re not doing the things that you need to do to recover. So that’s always always tied into those pieces of the insurance business in the health care business and certainly personal health.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So maybe my best bet is to reach out to the insurance companies… want to see people recover more quickly, keep them off long-term disability and, and all of that, and just work with them directly on making sure people get protein.
Trisha Rayner
Absolutely. I’ve my sister is a nurse and she’s worked for a large health insurance company and manages nurses across the Midwest. And nurses are virtual. And they are calling people post-op and post-recovery to make sure that they’re doing the things necessary. So they don’t go back into the hospital. And so insurance companies are paying more attention to anybody is they want people to be healthy and not go back to the hospital. And I think hospitals don’t want that either. Because that’s how they’re scored on their hospital rankings. They don’t want that repeat hospital visit. So there has to be some strategy in there that benefits both of them, but also is the right messaging for an individual’s health and well-being.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I know it’s funny, because actually, the second phase of the filming that we did for Sacred Cow, and maybe this needs to, you know, evolve into this a new project. But we actually flew to Zurich, Switzerland and met with Swiss Re who is one of the largest reinsurance companies, so they insure the insurance companies. And they were curious what diet makes people live the longest, so that we can keep people you know, paying their life insurance premiums the longest, right? So they had actually the purest goal of anybody because they just… there was no dogma. And it turns out that a low-ish carb, protein-forward diet is the way to go for healthspan. And it’s just amazing that, you know, when it trickles down into mainstream messages, where that’s not what people are being told,
Trisha Rayner
Absolutely, and I think it’s just, you know, everybody wants to be in that space. And it’s very flooded with all kinds of messages about new health and nutrition. So you have to really educate yourself or else you’re picking pieces and parts of what you want to hear and what you think is the right thing to do. And a lot of them are not from viable sources and not from measured sources and backed sources. So you know, all those messages coming at people it is difficult, and I say from a food bank perspective, you throw, you know, the inability to access it and afford it on top of that, and those are some hard decisions you have to make for a family and you have to kind of educate yourself on where you can go, what you need to do and how you spend those resources. And I say that just because the SNAP benefit emergency allotment just expired March 1. We had a senior come into our one of our markets. And he was during the pandemic, receiving about 150 to $80 a month to support his SNAP benefits. That’s $180 a month, with emergency allotment going away, it was reduced to $28 a month.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, my goodness.
Trisha Rayner
So he has to access us at this point, to be able to just eat, and has to know resources and the best way to spend what he can get. But $28 of SNAP dollars… $28 in SNAP benefits is not a lot of money for a senior to make those choices. So they’re making the cheap and easy ones, right? They’re making the… how many potatoes can I get? How many noodles can I get? Because it’s the cheapest option, you know, price of eggs, throw that on top of it. And the usual cost of a protein is not affordable to someone getting $28 a month to help supplement an already small income. So it was kind of a perfect storm. We said on March 1 of Social Security benefits went up about 6%. Emergency allotment came off of our of SNAP. So an increase it was viewed as an increase in seniors and disables – a 6% increase, which is the largest ever seen as an income increase, which decreased their SNAP benefits on top of the emergency allotment going away. And so we are tending to see more aged people coming into the food bank for that resource because that just isn’t enough to make it through.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And that’s just so frustrating. Yeah, I was… Oh, I was gonna bring up the fact too that for WIC benefits. A lot of people don’t know this, but there is no meat at all offered for WIC, which is the Women, Infants and Children, which we know those first 1000 days are the most important. Setting these kids up for lifelong success or nutrient deficiency, brain development, all of the brain development, all development and physical development.
Trisha Rayner
Yeah, and I would say that certainly we have several hospital clinics that are very interested in that work, especially our Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, we have two clinic pantries there, where social workers also interact with the medical staff, and really surround the patient coming in. So it’s kind of a one-stop shop. The hospitals certainly look at it as an added piece of their work that they do to help. It’s it’s more beneficial to have it right there. So families don’t have to take another bus stop, don’t have to take another child. But also look at as a way and one of the… we’ve been doing with Cincinnati children’s since Gosh, July of 2017. And really what they measured too was what repeat visits are we seeing because we have access to those food and we can provide access. So an ear infection at three months, and you have to come back in two weeks, if you know that you can come and say I just don’t have enough food to make it through the week. It’s right there at the hospital. So they looked at one of the measures of return visits on the health and wellness scale to say if we have some of these options available, and patients are not afraid to come in and say I just need a little help getting some food, that that was a great way for them to say then they’re coming back to have that child checked up from the previous illness or injury. And so it was changing a little bit of that stigma of once we see a patient then you never see them again. But you can actually help the entire family not just the child that needs to visit. So, you know, we make sure that we have healthy choices available in the hospital. And hospitals have regulations about what you can store and what you can’t store. And shelf-stable protein has been one that they can… they have some hoops to run through in regards to refrigeration of items. So we tend to have like pop up produce types of events once a month. But shelf-stable protein items are very good, very good option for our clinic pantries because you can keep them on the shelf. And there’s no regulations in regards to whether or not you have to refrigerate or freeze them. So that’s been a really nice benefit of us, especially with clinic pantries and the hospitals is that attachment to healthcare gives us also some credibility. And we get to look into the eyes of our medical professionals and have that conversation about healthy nutritious foods that are available to especially food insecure people.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Mm hmm. Yeah, I wonder… the idea with all this energy behind fruits and vegetables, we have to make sure you know fruits and vegetables and this eschewment of meat, it’s really more of an emotional, you know, what seems like the right solution instead of what actually is the right solution. And, you know, I wanted to also comment, I just wrote down ‘culturally appropriate’ because not only is meat culturally appropriate to most cultures, but also when we’re thinking about modern culture, and what people like to eat, what are people comforted by? Like, not just from their homeland. But you know, not just like, I’m not just talking like enchiladas and chicken sag, I’m talking about like, what do people want at the end of the day. When I worked at The Daily Table in Boston, which is sort of a low-income grocery store that was set up almost like a food bank, but they would take kind of close to expiring food, and we would sell it at discount prices. We didn’t have a lot of customers initially, and I did a little needs assessment, and went to the community health clinics and asked them, you know, why aren’t people coming in, you know, here we are with brown rice, and, you know, roasted chicken and some broccoli, and they’re not coming in. They’re still going to the fast food. And I thought this was all about just, you know, getting these… put these healthy food options in urban, you know, food deserts. And they said, well, when you’ve had a bad day, do you want steamed broccoli? And roasted chicken? Or do you want to dive into a bowl of pasta, or, you know, whatever your comfort food is, and I think there’s a certain level of elitism that goes along with this idea that everyone should just be eating fresh, you know, fruit and vegetable, you know, veggie stir fries with a little tofu? You know, that’s possible when you live near Whole Foods, and you, you know, have the time to cook that up. But that’s not what the average person who’s struggling might want now.
Trisha Rayner
And especially in food insecure people, too, It’s… is it? What are the options available to them? And then, like you said, What’s that source of comfort. So, I am always a firm believer in no matter where you go to eat, whether that’s through the grocery store, at home or away, you have choices to make. So just be smart about the choices that you make. And I think, again, I’m not saying any restaurant is bad, or any grocery store is bad and you have to have a little bit of that education piece to say if I’m in those places, and that’s what I want to eat, at least make better choices than going in blind. So it’s forget the french fries, right? Take the bun off of the patty, like there’s some options for you. When you make those choices, if it’s for comfort, or if it’s for convenience, or if it’s for cost, it really comes down to just being educated as to what are the best options that you have, at the moment. A long-standing colleague of mine who was in childcare, we have this ongoing debate about yogurt, and serving it to kids and having options of kids. So if you put, you know, a high protein kind of yogurt in front of them, you put a Gogurt yogurt in front of them, or you put a Snicker bar in front of them, right. And you’re at a childcare center, what are they going to pick? Right? And of course, people think that kids will pick Snickers, and I said, Yeah, you know, what about a frozen yogurt. Again, I’m not advocating for Gogurt. But it’s the packaging, it’s the cool stuff that’s in there. But I also think the better choice, of course, has the higher protein yogurt, but have those choices. If they had to choose – don’t choose the bottom one, right? Choose the middle one, have calcium, you’ve got some minerals, and vitamins, of course, and then move them to the next choice and educate them on why it’s important to move to the next one. So it’s a process of elimination and education. And I think it has to start certainly, with kids, as we raise the next generation that will help us live longer to make those choices and to make the healthier choice. It isn’t always about the organic piece of it, the steamed broccoli, it’s make healthy choices and make smart choices. And then work your way into that being a routine habit.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Exactly. And so the meat sticks were something that can, you know, make a big impact. They can go in the kids backpacks, you know, the flavors are pretty kid friendly. Can you talk about, you know, as a director of a food bank, what other types of shelf-stable protein are good options? And what do food banks need? Like, if there’s someone listening that, you know, is like, should I give money? Should I give product or you know, meat or you know, what are some of the challenges that food banks face?
Trisha Rayner
Sure, you know, certainly shelf-stable items are always good for a food bank, especially so we can make sure that we are able to store them for a longer period of time, of course, and able to put those into the hands of people no matter where they are certainly refrigerated and frozen proteins, fruits and vegetables are always important. The shelf life again on those fruits and vegetables ends up being it’s really tight for us. And so again, they’re very important to us and we always want to make sure that they’re in the hands and available to people, but it is a short window. Frozen meats for us is really kind of where we… is our sweet spot because we can store them a little bit longer. And we can have them available for longer periods of time for our agencies and partners to have. So I would say that we tend to go towards frozen meats, because we can keep them for a longer period of time in order. And is that…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Sorry to interrupt? Is that something that most food banks? Do they have freezers where they can…?
Trisha Rayner
Yes, it depends on the size of them. You know, we’re a pretty decent-sized food bank. In our food pantries we do we work with our local legislators, and we work with donors to provide and purchase refrigerators and freezers for our agencies for those exact types of things. If you’re in a church basement, you’re not going to have a walk-in freezer, but we do is… can we get you a reach-in freezer, can we get you an extra refrigerator to store those types of items? In smaller community-based ones, there’s very few pantries, I would say that have large walk-in freezers like we do. So we certainly work with all of our agencies to make sure they have the proper refrigeration and freezer storage as possible. And also a good selection of items for them to choose from. As a food bank, we receive food through donated food, through government commodities, and then we purchase food. So those are kind of three ways that we look at food sourcing is donated food, commodity food, and then purchase food during a pandemic, we saw a large rise in commodity food coming from the federal government. And we also had to purchase more food because across the United States pre-pandemic, there were about 34 million people that didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. During the pandemic was about 53 million people were accessing a food, the food system. So those new people coming into the food system because of the pandemic, where we had to supplement with purchase food. And I think that that’s an important piece of it is food banks across the country work daily to make sure that we can raise funds to purchase that food. Because we want to have balanced food. We can’t rely on government food all the time. And then what we do receive from the government we want to balance with what else do we need to make sure that we have a variety of foods available, we don’t have every food, but we have a variety of foods. So you know, certainly protein is important to us. And again, I’d said you know, our partners look for that across our footprint as almost their number one need, because of the expense, and we can store it longer get it to them in short period of time, and they can distribute it. During the pandemic we also saw we could distribute food quickly and easily through drive-thru distributions that everybody saw on the news. So that was a great way for us to because we can take it straight from freezer to car and not have to worry about kind of the middleman and dropping it off. So as we move towards the holidays, it’s always top of mind, it’s that comfort piece that comes to us is people want a turkey at Thanksgiving, right? They want that that large center of the traditional kind of plate filled. So we start sourcing protein, we source protein all of the time. But we have already started sourcing protein for the holidays that’s coming up. So we’ve seen those prices double. But we also raise funds to do that. And we help our donors explain that that’s an important part of anybody’s plate for healthy, nutritious balance of their meals. So, you know, I would say we always are sourcing protein and trying to find good sources of protein. And everything that we do.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the people that come to you are able to, like have cooking facilities? Is the majority, I’m guessing it’s the majority but and maybe in some other parts of the country they don’t but…
Trisha Rayner
Sure. And we certainly have intake information, again, at our markets in our pantries. We have done some distributions and some of our markets have some of those utensils. So we provide some can openers, we provide some other kind of cooking utensils. Our healthy harvest mobile market that goes into 12… take the back 10 grocery gaps across our city. We’ve had cooking classes on there. And once you complete the cooking class, in your neighborhood, you walk away with a skillet and utensils to cook. So we try to couple some of the things that we do with some of those utensils or access to those. So, you know, folks that come to us from group homes typically will have a kitchen in that area. We do do some homeless boxes, and we’re very cautious about what we can give. So that would be you know, pre-cooked, pre-processed kinds of foods that we need to make sure we get in their hands because they don’t have any options for cooking or reheating those types of things. We just launched our prepared meals program which has been great. So we certainly have a protein source and a vegetable source in a two compartment meal, just for just for that reason is we all want convenience. You know, our customers want convenience, too. And if it boils down to it, you know, if you’re in an apartment and you have a microwave, but you don’t have a stove, it’s a better option than a canned product for them to pop open. So we’re trying to look at how we can flash freeze things, how we can put those into convenience, and easily accessible types of items that it doesn’t take a lot of work to do.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And there were the grip strength, as we were talking about earlier. So I mean, so maybe they do have a stove, but they can’t yet actually, you know, use the candle burn open?
Trisha Rayner
Yeah. yeah, absolutely. And then we have a direct program too. We’re actually just like a grocery store, we’re delivering door to door. So if we can deliver boxes of protein and fruits and vegetables to the door of people who have no access for transportation, or limited access, or where they can get to the grocery, that’s a door-to-door service. So many of our deliveries are within 10 or 15 minutes of our facility. And so we can stay within the food safety guidelines for many of our deliveries to get that quickly delivered to a home, right on the doorstep. And so it eliminates that transportation and access barrier that is seen in you know, immunocompromised populations, low mobility populations, that I think is somewhat of a game changer for us as a food bank.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. Well, hopefully this has been inspiring, I didn’t know that that you know, one of the options down the road for a dietitian would be running a food bank. So that’s, you know, I do have a lot of followers who are in training now, including my podcast editor, who will be listening to this – Emily. It’s noble, it’s important. And thank you for the work that you do. And how can people find you if they want to, first of all contribute to you? And secondly, to how would they maybe find a food bank in their own area?
Trisha Rayner
Sure. And I would certainly like to mention, too, that, you know, the last probably five to 10 years in the food bank space, it’s really been a conversation about health and hunger. It hasn’t been about just food insecurity, its health and hunger, and how we kind of wrap our arms around that, and how do we have products and services available to address those issues. So, you know, it’s, we talk a lot about disease factors, we talk about how we can do meal preparation, how we can do prescribed meals from an insurance perspective. So that whole conversation is very fresh. And it is very right for many folks that are coming up the ranks. And when you want to be a dietitian and want to be involved with their food bank, because it isn’t just about a warehouse giving out food, it’s thoughtful conversations with your medical community and your customers in your community as to how you can do that in the best way. And we need people with that background to help us with the movement of fat forward. So there’s lots of space in there and would welcome and many, many, many food banks have either contracted dietitians have someone on their board that is a dietitian. And that’s a great way to start as well, or just getting involved as a volunteer to look at your backpack program and see if a nutritionist, or dietitian can look at it and say that’s a well-balanced, well-rounded, healthy nutrition, nutrient dense type of backpack that we can send home to kids. So I would encourage anybody in the field to just take a look at their local food bank, and you could volunteer with packing events like you participated in and helped feed children, to the board, to being actually a paid staff person. So lots of opportunity out there. So that’s great. So in order to get involved, certainly here in Cincinnati, you can go to the Freestore foodbank.org. And there’s options for donating and volunteering and getting more involved, as well as finding a local pantry near you. So we have lots of volunteer opportunities at our food bank. And we also have volunteer opportunities at all of our locations that, you know, churches and schools need help also. So anything in your local community, if you’re looking for a food bank that’s in your area, you’re out in beautiful San Diego, California, don’t we wish we all were all across the country. There’s a food bank in your local area, and we cover the entire United States. So if you go to the Feeding America website, which is feeding america.org, you can see all of the locations across the country and be connected with your local food bank.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Well, thank you so much for again, for all the work you do. I’m so honored to be connected with you. I hope to work again, you know, next year with Markus and hopefully will make even a bigger impact than we did this year.
Trisha Rayner
I agree, Diana. It’s been so great to meet you. And we’re so glad you stopped in Cincinnati and next time it’ll be a little bit longer,
Diana Rodgers, RD
I hope, yes.
Trisha Rayner
So we’ll see you soon and thanks for having me today.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.
