Hospital food matters

Hospitals are meant to be places of healing, but it seems that the food we serve our there may have the opposite effect. I have a feeling that we will look back in 50 years and be shocked at the things we’ve been feeding people.

This NPR story talks about a pilot study done by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future: What happens when hospitals serve less meat on their menus? (And the meat that they do serve is bought from local, organic, and sustainable sources.)

They looked at 3 hospitals and found the following:

• A 28% decrease in meat and poultry purchases (translated to save $400,000/year)
• Reduction in meat-related greenhouse gases by 1,648 tons/year
• Reduction in CO2 emissions equivalent to burning 102,454 gallons of gasoline or sequestering carbon by growing 23,354 tree seedlings over 10 years 

Wow… how can hospitals not do this?! It would mean both healthier patients and a healthier planet.

3 simple things health providers/hospitals can do right now:

1. Buy & sell less meat
2. Buy food from local, organic, sustainable food sources
3. Participate in Meatless Mondays (also started by Johns Hopkins – go them!) 

Even Einstein agrees...

"Nothing will benefit human health, and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth, as much as the evolution to a Vegetarian Diet" ~Albert Einstein