By Cecilia Chan

Independent Newsmedia

James McNamara is more conscious these days of what he puts in his grocery cart — gone are the potato chips and cookies, replaced by vegetables and fruit.

“It’s helped lower my cholesterol,” the 64-year-old Peoria resident said. “I’m feeling better, I’m losing weight.”

Mr. McNamara has a pilot program to thank for putting him on a path of healthier eating and a healthier lifestyle as a result.Banner Health created the Savory Script program, working with area physicians and health care providers to identify seniors who could benefit from it.

Once identified, seniors are handed a prescription or “Savory Script’’ that they redeem for a free bag of wholesome food and recipes once a week either in Sun City or in Peoria. The program started in Sun City in March and in Peoria last month.

One recent Friday morning, in the parking lot of La Ronde Shopping Center on Del Webb Boulevard, three volunteers from Banner Olive Branch Senior Center manned a makeshift station for seniors to pick up the food.

“The scripts indicate the types of food the doctor wishes the patient to start ingesting,” explained Cynthia Ewing, an outreach specialist with the senior center.

She opened up a bag showing what’s included in that week’s offering — chicken breast, lean steak, a loaf of high-protein bread, yogurt, Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, bananas — enough for three days, plus easy-to-prepare recipes. A woman who has a nursing background works in the center’s pantry, helping select the food that goes into the bags each week, Ms. Ewing said.

The food bags help give the recipient an idea of what they should be buying at the grocery store, she said, adding one senior who had never tried Brussels sprouts before was surprised they tasted like cabbage.

“It’s opened me up to a few more dishes, more items I probably should have in my life,” Mr. McNamara said. “It’s making me look at food a little different instead of picking up things I like. It helped put me in the right direction to think about what I put in my body.”

The program is not income-based and there is no limit on how long a senior can participate in the program.

“We hope to increase their health overall,” Ms. Ewing said. “I am hearing (from patients) they have more energy and can walk across the street. When the food is not going in correctly, you lose your energy.”

According to The Center for Science in the Public Interest, unhealthy diet contributes to approximately 678,000 deaths each year in the United States due to nutrition- and obesity-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes.

The consumer advocacy group said obesity rates have doubled in adults, tripled in children and quadrupled in adolescents. Among seniors, more than one-third are overweight.

Dr. Natalya Faynboym, who oversees the Savory Scripts program, said in choosing the participant, they look at anybody who is food insecure or food unwise and have been diagnosed with diabetes, high body mass index or BMI and high cholesterol. So far, there are 20 senior participants.

“This program is in the pilot stage right now,” she said. “There is no stop date. The goal is to continue to grow the program if it shows viability.”

The goal of the pilot program is to see if the cost of care for the patient decreases and there is a change in chronic disease trajectory, the doctor said.

For example, she said, are the patients able to manage their diabetes better because of a healthier diet, using the emergency room less because they have a better control over the disease.

Dr. Faynboym said doctors like the program because they don’t have the time to discuss nutrition, say with a patient newly diagnosed with diabetes.

“It’s an extra tool,” she said.

As part of the pilot program, patients are monitored to see if health indicators such as blood-sugar and cholesterol levels improve.

“I’ve always been a big person, I accept that genetically,” said Mr. McNamara, who is hopeful he can get off his statin medication. “But I had a heart attack 3.5 years ago. During that time I was taking care of my dad and I was putting on weight without realizing it and had a heart attack. After the heart attack I started eating healthier and was able to get down to a good weight but on this program I lost another 10 to 12 pounds.

“I’ve become a little more healthier and everybody wants to live a bit longer.”