Organic and local food served at Grace Homes
The majority of food served at Grace Homes - Oak Ridge House is organic. We also try to buy local when possible. Most organic and local food tastes better. We notice our residents, as elderly and frail as they are, rarely get sick. Most take minimal medications.
We often use food as our medicine here. When a resident is having loose stools, we give them bananas to firm the stool. Fever, vomiting or loose stools we replace lost fluid and electrolytes with coconut water. To keep bowels regular, we serve oatmeal nearly every morning for breakfast, and prune juice.
We serve salmon often at dinnertime. Wild salmon is packed with Omega 3 fatty acids which are important for brain and heart health.
We also noticed many of our residents have some degree of lactose intolerance. We minimize their dairy intake by serving soy milk instead of cow’s milk at meals, and small portions of cheese and ice cream.
We purchase the majority of our food for Oak Ridge House every Friday at Lakewinds Natural Food co-op and Costco. Surprisingly, Costco carries a large selection of bulk organic foods. For Thanksgiving we served Minnesota’s Ferndale Farms turkey which was free range, hormone and antibiotic free. We often serve meat and dairy products from Cedar Summit Farm in New Prague, Minnesota, where cows roam free and are not given hormones and antibiotics.
At every meal we serve there are always fresh fruit and vegetables - the fruit is cut and served in an appealing dish - lots of green salads....this fall we have been serving baked squash and sweet potatoes, Minnesota grown Honeycrisp apples, and root vegetables.
One loaf of light wheat bread is baked fresh every morning to serve with the days meals. Our residents love the fresh bread. We use real butter on the bread which they also love.
Our cookies and baked goods are all homemade using oatmeal and other healthy ingredients.
Our recipes have been tested over time and are proven winners in popularity amongst residents.