Our Mission & Philosophy
Mission: Provide healthy, organic meals to people in a health crisis while fostering compassion and empowering youth and adult volunteers in our communities.
Healing Meals philosophy is built on three main concepts:
Nourish with Love
Individuals linked to their community have an overall sense of connection.
Food is Medicine
Nutrient-rich food is a necessary part of a person’s overall well-being.
Community Engagement
Our food philosophy is based on the simple but true concept that food is healing when it is whole, organic, locally grown, and prepared with love. We use ‘old-fashioned’ community values with original and innovative approaches to deliver on our mission.
Community Engagement
Healing Meals brings together youth and adult volunteers in a welcoming place where cross-generational creativity and respect forms the foundation of our culture. Balancing ‘old-fashioned’ community values and recognition of the relationship between nutrition and healing, we support families facing a health crisis with healthy, organic meals.
We understand that by involving youth in our program we can create a ripple effect that helps us make a greater impact. Therefore, a core component of our mission is to foster compassion and empower youth. We bring teen volunteers into the kitchen to learn how to prepare food and into our gardens to experience the farm-to-table journey. Youth experience connection with others as they create hand-written messages of care for our clients. Exposing youth to a wide variety of lessons through hands-on, experiential learning programs helps them to excel in areas where they may never have seen themselves and gain a deep understanding that food is medicine.
Nourish with Love
It’s a simple notion, individuals who are sick should have access to nutrient-rich food. Yet healthy meals are not readily accessible to those who need them most. everyday people in our community battling chronic illnesses find themselves unable to shop or cook — and, often, without a support network to help.
Healing Meals nourishes with love. We believe that food is medicine, so we prepare and deliver nutritious meals that support healing for people recovering from acute health issues. We provide much more than meals; we offer a circle of support that lifts individuals while building community.
Food is Medicine
We make our meals with the best organic, locally sourced (when possible) ingredients we can buy. We pride ourselves on giving our clients fresh organic vegetables and fruit, whole grains and legumes, fresh wild-caught fish, local pasture-raised poultry, and unrefined oils: coconut, olive, sesame, and avocado. In addition, we use only natural sugars: fruit, honey, coconut sugar, maple syrup along with sea salt, sea vegetables, organic herbs, and spices.
Our meals are free from refined or highly processed ingredients. We do not use chemical additives or colorings, genetically modified organisms (GMO), refined oils, or processed sugars. In addition, we do not source factory farmed meat or farmed fish.
Healing Meals follows a meal planning process that ensures our meals are filling, well balanced, and packed with disease-fighting power. We embrace the American Institute of Cancer Research’s New American Plate and aim to fill ½ of your plate with a combination of vegetables, ¼ with a healthy starch, and ¼ with lean animal protein or plant-based protein.