Northwell Health, Queens County Farm bring the farm-to-table experience

Community members are learning healthy, affordable recipes as port ofthe Farm-to-Table initiative at Queens County Farm Museum over the next 12 weeks.

The new initiative featuresa five-year partnership between Queens County Farm Museum and Northwell Health, where everyone is welcome to learn healthy eating habits and purchase produce at an affordable price.

“It’s a well-known fact that healthy eating is important to preventing chronic illnesses in the future,” said Deb Salas-Lopez, senior vice president of community health and population health at Northwell.

A healthy diet can prevent, delay and manage type-2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity. But that’s not the only mission of this new initiative. The goal of Farm-to-Table is to educate children and adults about healthy eating options, show them how to get fruits and vegetables at affordable prices and how to make them taste good.

Brynn Digeorge, a 10-year-old student who attended the Farm to Table event at Queens County Farm Museum, wants to go back for future events before the initiative ends in October.

“Personally, I love the taste testing,” Digeorge said. “The food was so good and I did not expect that for healthy food. Normally I think that healthy food doesn’t taste nearly as good as not-as-healthy food.”

Chefs, dieticians and nutritionists all work to educate the public at the weekly events. Chefs cook and teach the public recipes to incorporate into their daily lives, and the dieticians and nutritionists provide recommendations for healthy ingredients. The public is also able to purchase fruits and vegetables at affordable prices at the produce stand at the event.

“We’re excited to meet our community where they are,” Salas-Lopez said. “We’re excited about education  and outreach. We’re excited about the possibilities for the future.”

These chefs, dieticians and nutritionists participating in the program are bilingual and multilingual eliminating any language barriers while answering questions, preparing multilingual menus and teaching proper food portions according to United States Department of Agriculture standards.

“By aligning our two organizations together, we sort of give each other a different perspective to continue our work more boldly for the public,” said Jennifer Walden, executive director of Queens Farm.

The recipes and farm stand will align with the fruits and vegetables that are freshly picked that day. All the main ingredients are provided by Queens Farm.

Queens Farm is the oldest working farm in New York City operating since 1697. It fosters health education through various programs, including its School-to-Farm education program. Theprogram educated over 100,000 students prior to Covid-19 about nutrition, health, wellness, composting, farm design, New York City history, folk arts and STEM curriculum.

“When you see where your food is grown, when you see how it’s regeneratively farmed like at Queens Farm, it changes your perspective,” Walden said. “It doesn’t feel like you’re working hard at being healthy, because you’re learning how to just eat healthier from the Earth.”

Queens Farm also hosts otherevents throughout the year, including the Thunderbird American Indian Powwow, the Queens County Fair, the Amazing Maize Maze and Halloween on the Farm. It also provides urban hen-raising lessons and urban bee-keeping instruction.

“I especially love the animals,” Digeorge said. “They’re so cute.”

Northwell Health runs the Northwell Community Scholars Program where it supports 10th through 12th grade students with college applications and preparation assistance throughcareer advice and tuition reimbursement for two-year and technical degrees. Now that this partnership with Queens Farm exists, part of their curriculum will include working on the farm and learning how to farm and eat healthy.

Northwell Health is New York’s largest healthcare providerand has several programs that foster healthy eating. Its hospitals and in-patient facilities have employed Michelin-star chefs for six years. The facilities no longer use fryers to make food. Source ingredients come from local farms in Nassau as well as Suffolk counties and in and near Westchester County wherever and whenever possible.

Northwell also created the Wellness on Wheels program teachingelementary school students in about healthy eating and the importance of physical well-being. In the spring, it teaches the students how to cook healthy and grow fruits and vegetables. They then send the students home with a bean plant and a harvested vegetable with a corresponding recipe.

“Habits are formed early,” Salas-Lopez said. “If you get kids to see how they’re grown and you cook it in front of them and make it tasty, you start to sensitize them to the habits of eating healthy.”