If you’re ill, a trip to the hospital isn’t exactly something to look forward to. There’s the needles, the shared rooms, the backside-baring gowns, the sight of things you hope to never see and, most of all, the uninspired and seemingly cardboard-derived food. But hospital food isn’t just bad for patients; it’s also unhealthy for anyone who visits the cafeteria or gets take-out.
The reason is that while restaurants are forced to keep prices low and produce a wide variety of options to appeal to everyone, hospitals must deal with limited budgets and specific dietary requirements. But that doesn’t mean that hospital food is always terrible, and many are taking steps to change the way they serve their customers and community.
It’s important for patients to get enough calories to function properly during and after their stay, but it’s equally as important to choose foods that are healthy. The problem is that hospital dining often mirrors the unhealthy American diet to a T, offering foods such as cheeseburgers and soda, processed meats, macaroni and cheese and pizza for lunch and dinner and cookies and other sugary snacks for snacking.
To combat this, some hospitals are partnering with local small businesses to deliver healthier take-out options for patients and staff members. For example, LIJ Valley Stream recently became the first hospital in the Northwell Health system to start a food pharmacy, where low-income patients can come weekly to pick up bags of groceries based on their physician’s prescriptions and help them follow a diet designed to manage chronic diseases.
Another effort to make hospital food healthier is to make plant-based meals the default choice, with meat and dairy only available on a patient’s request. This is the approach taken by NYC Health + Hospitals, which has cut its food-related carbon emissions by 36% in only one year after making this the default menu option for its inpatients.
A final improvement to the hospital food experience is focusing on fresh foods with few ingredients. Steering clear of packaged snacks (like donuts, cookies and granola bars) and sticking to nutrient-rich whole foods like berries, roasted sweet potatoes and plain rolled oats will help ensure that patients leave the hospital feeling better than they came in.
Hopefully these improvements will lead to a day when visiting the hospital will be as much of a joy as going to a restaurant. Until then, we’ll have to settle for trying not to gag when we’re tempted by the food on offer at the doctor’s office or the hospital.