Organic Mint
As we debate food sustainability issues along with many others including healthcare, an important question surfaces about the quality of hospital food — is it really improving, or just getting lip service?
Certainly anyone who has been to the hospital knows that the experience is a study in contrasts — often people feel fine before going in, can’t get any rest while they are there, and would only loosely describe what they are served as “food.”
One hospital, apparently, is attempting to change this trend. John Muir Medical Center in Concord, California is attempting to change this trend. By investing in local, sustainable food sources they can accomplish 3 goals: a) improvement of patient health, as a person undergoing surgical trauma or recovery requires food inputs of maximum quality, b) support of the local community in ways which will directly impact health over the long-term, serving their overall mission to deliver healing, and c) direct impact on the dietary choices modelled for patients i.e. “If the hospital is serving it, maybe I should try it at home,” a departure from the standard today, which is that if the hospital is serving it, it must be a nutritional joke.
Organic, sustainable food and hospital healing may just be an educational and marketing “match” that finally marries the potential of both.
Source article: “Hospital Food Gets Pushed Down The Organic Aisle”: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128048197
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