H&H Nutrition Program
Mackenzie Fink, H&H Nutrition Director, provides background information on the history of the nutrition program of Heroes and Horses.
I’ll never forget the day Micah and I knew we had to effect change within the dynamic of nutrition. It was early one morning in September of 2017 and I was driving with a program graduate to film his “500 miles story.” We stopped at the gas station to fill up, and he walked out with an energy drink and a Snickers and it wasn’t even 7 am. My belly dropped the way a mothers would when she sees her child making a choice that doesn’t serve them. Immediately we knew, we must educate through the implementation of a food program that would help the program participants to break bad habits that lead to more bad habits. I.e. Energy drinks which lead to lack of sleep which leads to taking pills etc. Up until this point, the program ran on donated food and volunteers who loved to cook their favorite “comfort meals” for the students. Oftentimes, this was a Dutch oven filled with a savory combination of flavors cooked over a campfire. That’s right – a campfire! For the first 3 years of operations, all meals were cooked over a basic campfire with a wire rack and no running water.
The following season, in 2018, we moved to Jumping Horse Ranch with a real kitchen which felt like a giant sigh of relief. We started aligning ourselves with a Whole30 approach working diligently with volunteers to effect a new way of eating in our program highlighting and sharing the importance of what we put in our bodies and reducing inflammation in the body. For the next two years, we fed the program participants while in camp Whole30 meals, but it was a struggle to do so while they were in the backcountry. So in 2021, we decided to initiate our very own backcountry freeze-dried meal food program focusing on an anti-inflammatory approach that we created. With 60 days before the season start date, the freeze dryers arrived at the office and the meal prep began. The smells of Korean Beef bowls, Turmeric Egg Scrambles, and Curried Roasted Root Vegetables, to name just a few, wafted around the office as the team prepared for the season. This would be our very first season at the Double H ranch. With limited infrastructure, an incredibly resourceful board member, Dan Brochu, and the help of many talented volunteers turned a shop into our new kitchen.
I sat in a chair outside of this kitchen last weekend with tears streaming down my face and humility filling the contents of my heart, remembering where we started this journey nearly 10 years ago – at the kitchen table with zero horses, trailers, or tack/gear, no kitchen, no volunteers, or team but a fire deep in the belly of my husband’s center. The evolution of our food program is just one component of what we have done here at Heroes and Horses and it has journeyed through many different iterations and really carries a story of its own worth sharing which is why we have chosen to do so. We are incredibly proud of the meals that we serve at the Double H ranch, the freeze-dried meal program for the backcountry, and The Anti-Inflammatory Farmacy – Traditional Wisdom and Science-Backed Guide that the students take home with them. A book that will be available soon to all of you!
-Mackenzie Fink