Nutrition and healthy, delicious food are vital for a patient going through detox. Of anyone that has suffered from drug or alcohol addiction, few can say that they have truly taken care of their health during active addiction. Therefore, when going to detox and managing withdrawal symptoms, it is important that patients not only receive the highest quality medical care and clinical services to support their mental and emotional health, but that they also eat a diet that supports their bodies healing.
This is one of the reasons that when opening Innovo Detox, we took great pride in finding a chef and a culinary team that can do just that: cook incredible meals for patients that would also benefit them from a health and wellness standpoint. Throughout the years, our culinary team led by Chef Liam Surry have created nutritious meals for our patients that make them feel better as they go through detox. Our culinary team create daily menus, but also make sure that any patient with specific nutrition or dietary needs can have those needs met on a daily basis.
More recently, Chef Liam believed that something we could implement here at Innovo Detox was more farm-to-table cooking. Farm-to-table cooking is when food is taken directly from the farm or a garden where it was grown, prepared and cooked, and then served. The food is direct and does not come from a store, a market, or a distributor. So, with this idea in mind, Chef Liam and his team took it upon themselves to create a new garden right here at Innovo Detox, with the idea that we could grow, harvest, and make our own produce for the patients, adding this to the menus each day to serve higher quality and better tasting meals.
One of our neighbors at Innovo Detox here in Abbottstown, Pennsylvania is Harvest Chapel. The church, located behind our facility and with whom we share land, is the ministry of Senior Pastors and its founders are Don and Lori Wolabaugh. Chef Liam reached out to Pastor Don to discuss this idea, and Pastor Don happily entered into this shared partnership, where on shared land we would be able to create a new and exciting garden at Innovo Detox where fresh produce could grow and be utilized in healthy, farm-to-table cooking.
On Friday, September 12th 2022, we were able to see the fruit of our labors. After some time, including choosing the specific location, purchasing all the necessary gardening tools, creating the garden bed, and then planting seeds and tending to the crops, we harvested the first of hopefully many bounties from the garden at Innovo Detox. The first harvest produced bok choy and tomatoes, which will now be included in numerous dishes featured on the daily menus here at Innovo Detox.
This is one of the many ways we are looking to incorporate health and wellness at our facility, as well as helping our patients begin a journey of recovery that includes daily health and wellness routines. Healthy eating is certainly one of those initiatives. This also give us a chance to partner with our neighbors to provide high quality care for our local population impacted by addiction. We look forward to the many more harvests in the future!
If you or someone you know needs help for addiction or co-occurring disorders, please give us a call. Innovo Detox offers the latest in evidence-based medical, psychiatric, and clinical care for those in need of detox and medical stabilization in Pennsylvania and the surrounding Mid-Atlantic area. If we aren’t the best fit for you or a loved one, we will take the necessary time to work with you to find a detox, rehab, treatment center or provider that better fits your needs. Please give us a call at (717) 619-3260 or email our team at info@innovodetox.com. For more information on our company or services, please visit our website at www.innovodetox.com.