Premiered on September 7 at the Crest Theater, Breaking Bread is a three-part documentary series produced by Moonracer Films and Sacramento TV affiliate KCRA, that focuses on a cast of renowned chefs in Sacramento and highlights the region’s leadership in the farm-to-fork movement.

One of the chefs featured is Santana Diaz, the executive chef of UC Davis Health. Chef Santana previously cooked for restaurants like The Firehouse in Old Sacramento and created the program that made the Golden 1 Center the most green food system in professional sports. As the director of culinary operations and innovation and executive chef at UC Davis Health, he was awarded with a James Beard Foundation award as Smart Catch Leader and the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA)’s Excellence in Foodservice Award in the area of hospitals and health care. This makes UC Davis the only hospital with a James Beard award-winning chef.

Chef Santana and his team produce more than 6,500 meals per day that serve the diverse nutritional needs of patients, students, faculty and staff at UC Davis Health. His food focuses on local, seasonal ingredients. Recent menus include delicious options like Thai basil chicken, Japanese vegetable curry, and gochujang BBQ tofu along with a wide variety of sandwiches and soups. 

Growing up surrounded by fresh food and produce, Diaz understands the importance of good quality food, especially in a hospital setting where healthy meals can play an important part in healing and patient outcomes. “Good food is good medicine” is a favorite motto of Chef Santana and a guiding principle of his operations. Since his arrival at UC Davis Health, the share of local and sustainable food sources at the hospital grew from 16 to 41%.

The Breaking Bread series takes a deep dive into Chef Santana’s career journey building an innovative, transformational institutional farm-to-fork food program. The docuseries is available to watch on Very Local, a free streaming for local news and originals, available on the Apple and Google app stores as well as Roku and Amazon Fire TV.