Midwest Food Bank clients enjoy soy enhanced hot meal

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

NSRL had the privilege of joining with the Midwest Food Bank (MFB) in Peoria last week to celebrate receipt of a check from the Community Foundation to support the Tender Mercies Program.

Tender Mercies is a collaboration between MFB and NSRL, who together created a pre-packaged, easy-to-prepare, highly nutritious, soy-enhanced hot meal mix that incorporates donated soy ingredients. Over the past six months, Stacey Krawczyk and Marilyn Nash have modified and adjusted recipes to get the right taste, texture and mouth feel that would be appealing and appetizing to MFB clients. Each packet of Tender Mercies can serve five people at a cost of about 11 cents per serving. The recipe blends Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) with rice, dehydrated beans and chicken seasoning. 5 cups of boiling water is then added for a high fiber, high protein, nutritionally balanced and delicious meal.

The goal was to develop a soy-enhanced product that was highly adaptable and also enjoyable to eat. The chicken & rice hot meal has a two-year shelf life and visual instructions for preparation are on the label along with written instructions.

The media were invited in to taste the Chicken & Rice hot meal and they thought it tasted pretty good. MFB volunteers were on site assembling the hot meals and the media had a chance to tour the MFB facility.

There are several other soy-enhanced recipes in the pipeline that are being developed to be part of the Tender Mercies Program. Larry and Susan Herman have been excellent partners for NSRL. They are so passionate about their work and we really appreciate their commitment to making a difference in the lives of people who are hungry and food insecure. MFB will begin distributing Tender Mercies in mid-August to 190 not-for-profit organizations. MFB supplies food to about 70,000 people each month.

We are pleased to be making a difference with soy in our own backyard and look forward to working with MFB on future Tender Mercies products that provide highly nutritional soy solutions.

Regards,

Bridget