Learn how Crossroads Farm in Malverne helps redefines hospital dining

The underwhelming caliber of most hospital food is, for Russell Ficke, a problem worth solving. So, for the past five years, Ficke, the executive chef at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital, and his staff have been working to ensure that everything that leaves the hospital’s kitchen is restaurant-quality fare.

His meals not only use fresh, organic ingredients, but are also tailored to meet each patient’s dietary needs.

“Hospital food has a bad reputation,” Ficke said. “We’ve been trying to work on the quality of the food by doing local, fresh and organic wherever possible, because we believe that food is medicine.”

LIJ has recently teamed up with Crossroads Farm at Grossmann’s, in Malverne, in a farm-to-hospital partnership. Each week, the farm delivers 100 to 300 pounds of fresh, seasonal produce to the hospital for patients’ meals.

“We’ve been getting a lot of tomatoes, so I’ve been making tomato sauce,” Ficke said. So far, the deliveries have mostly comprised Crossroads’ surplus produce, but, Ficke explained, “Next season, it will look more like a 50-50 partnership, where I’ll request specific items for them to grow for the menu.”

Michael D’Angelo, the farm’s operations manager, is optimistic about the future of this joint venture. “We’re going to be sitting down with them in the next month or so, to really talk about what they would really like and see more of,” he said of LIJ. “We’re going to be growing for them specifically next year, instead of just really working with surplus.”

A new era of hospital food
For decades, the quality of the food many hospitals serve seems to have ranked low on their priority lists. Tight spending — and, as a result, limited food budgets — have led medical facilities to stock vending machines and line their cafeteria counters with mass-produced, pre-packaged meals, in the interest of efficiency and convenience.

Health experts say the price of that convenience is steep. An often-cited study published in the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition found that one in three hospitalized adults in the United States is at risk of malnutrition. Patients often leave their meals uneaten, risking their health.

The problem, Ficke argues, is how hospitals outsource and prepare their dishes.
Food that scores high on taste and freshness has been treated with fewer pesticides and has fewer preservatives, he said. The fewer artificial add-ons on patients’ plates, the better they feel and, potentially, the sooner they recover.

Locally sourced, deliciously served
“The advantage of locally sourced fruits and vegetables is that you get them at the peak of their freshness and flavor,” Ficke said. “When cooked properly, you don’t need to load it up with sodium or bury it in heavy sauces and butter or cream to make it taste good.”

According to D’Angelo, all of the produce harvested at Crossroads is naturally grown and shipped under conditions meant to maximize its freshness.

“Produce is put through our wash station, where they are dunked in cold water and sit there for some time,” he said. “They are then transferred to our cooling station, to ensure those greens can last in the fridge for up to a week.”

Ficke said that in the Northwell Health system, the hospital’s parent company, patient reviews are positive across the board when it comes to food quality. As well, LIJ’s transformed menu has cut down on the number of meals being sent back to the kitchen or thrown in the trash.
Gone are the days of nurses and doctors having to arm-twist patients into eating food that might meet dietary requirements for their illness, but might also but offend their palates.

The true cost of better hospital fare
Investing in better food service, however, whether by hiring executive chefs or nutritionists, can often prove prohibitively expensive. This is particularly true for hospitals facing financial constraints and dealing with challenges like staffing shortages.

Thanks in large part to the powerful backing of Northwell, Ficke Russell is fortunate to have the resources to raise the hospital’s culinary bar. Some of this summer’s dishes — from Belgian waffles to Duck confit and frisée salad — bear an uncanny resemblance to the offerings of upscale eateries.

And the hospital can foot the bill for volumes of homegrown, in-season produce each week. “(Northwell) pays the going market price for local organic produce,” D’Angelo said.

According to Ficke, the hospital currently sources 20 to 30 percent of its produce from Crossroads, and the rest from large fresh-food distributors like Baldor. The goal is to increase the farm’s contribution as it expands its production capacity.

The Crossroads-LIJ farm-to-hospital partnership is shattering the old paradigm of hospital fare, and D’Angelo says it motivates growers like him to continue their efforts.

“We don’t often get to see the final destination of all the stuff that we grow,” he said. “Knowing that the food that we’re growing, the food that we’re putting so much work into, is going to help people when they’re not having their best days and need their nutrition — there’s no words to describe the way we feel about this.”