Build healthier food environments for your patrons through education, promotion, and marketing of healthy foods and beverages at your facility.
Healthy food environments include the food itself – whole or minimally-processed – as well as community culture. Hospitals can promote community health by offering culturally-relevant, nourishing food that honors communities’ food traditions and protects against food-related chronic disease.
As promoters and protectors of community health, hospitals can use procurement and related strategies to foster healthy and resilient communities.
Sample initiatives
Below are a few validated initiatives to assist hospitals in developing meaningful and relevant tactics to fit your organization.
Create menus that highlight foods with high nutritional value and low environmental impact
Focus on whole and minimally processed foods when developing your menu and purchasing goods:
- Shift food spending toward whole plant-based foods, including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, with an aim for 50% of total spend across these categories.
- If dairy milk is offered, purchase fat-free, low-fat or reduced fat milk with no added sweeteners.
- Offer minimally-processed plant-based alternatives where dairy products are offered (i.e. products made with soy, almond, rice, oat, or other plant-based ingredients)
- Offer whole or minimally processed plant-based main dishes at each meal service.
Where animal products are served, focus on health-promotion for people and planet:
- Choose animal products produced without the use of antibiotics for disease prevention or other routine purposes
- If meat is offered, reduce purchases of red and processed meat
- Increasing the purchase and menuing of high protein plant foods can be a useful strategy for reducing meat on the menu while generating more health and environmental benefits associated with these foods.
- If meals featuring crustaceans (e.g. shrimp, lobster, crayfish, crabs) are prepared at your facility, use the most humane methods for cooking. Ensure that live boiling without stunning is prohibited.
Develop and implement a nutritional policy that covers all prepared and packaged foods, meeting or exceeding the following guidelines (taken from the Federal Food Service Guidelines).
- All individually portioned food items contain ≤ 480 mg sodium per serving. Purchase “low sodium” (≤ 140 mg sodium per serving) whenever possible
- Added sugars (including natural and artificial sweeteners) in individually portioned food items should be no more than 10% of Daily Value per serving (DV is 50g)
- Grain products purchased are whole grain rich
- Healthy beverages make up the majority of beverage options offered. Healthy beverages can be defined as: Water (filtered tap, unsweetened, seltzer or infused); Milk (plain, unsweetened); Non-dairy milk alternatives (plain, unsweetened); Teas and Coffee (unsweetened with only naturally occurring caffeine).
- Diet drinks with artificial sweeteners are not considered healthy beverages and should be eliminated. To the best possible ability, beverages should be dispensed by tap or fountain AND reusable beverage containers should be encouraged.
- If juice is purchased, all juice purchased is 100% fruit juice with no added sweeteners, and vegetable juice is low Sodium as per FDA definitions.
- Eliminate food additives including artificial coloring and flavoring
Prioritize the preparation of all vegetables and protein, including fish, poultry, meat, or meat alternatives in a way that utilizes vegetable-based oils or reduces added fat (broiling, grilling, baking, poaching, roasting, or steaming).
- Limit the use of deep frying to whole/minimally processed foods (ex: plantains) and eliminate use of frozen or prepared items that are deep fried upon purchase.
