While the pleasures of a good meal are gratifying, the real reason hospitals should offer better food is that nutrition is a pillar of good health, says Dr. David Eisenberg of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Eisenberg says the jury is no longer out on the benefits of eating a more plant-based diet with less refined foods, sugar and red meat. A study published last year in JAMA estimated that nearly half of the deaths from heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes are caused by poor diet.
Dr. Eisenberg laments that only 27 percent of American medical schools teach the recommended 25 hours of nutrition, and even then the content is mostly biochemistry rather than “practical” advice about diet. As a rule, doctors are trained in “pathogenesis,” the origin of disease, rather than “salutogenesis,” the creation of health, Dr. Eisenberg said. He has been on a mission to boost “culinary literacy” by helping to develop teaching kitchens in hospitals throughout the United States.
“No hospital should be discharging a patient without giving them the tools they need to be successful, so that they don’t get readmitted” said Eric Sieden, director of food and nutritional services for Plainview and Syosset hospitals on Long Island. They now teach people things like what exactly a carb serving is, how to read food labels and the difference between high-fructose corn syrup and sugar.
The responsibility of a hospital does not end when a patient is discharged, said Stephen Bello, executive director of LIJ Valley Stream. In addition to running a community teaching kitchen, his hospital is the first in the Northwell system to start a “food pharmacy,” which provides bags of groceries based on a prescription that a physician writes when a person is discharged. Low-income patients who are deemed to be “food insecure” can come in weekly to receive free food to help them stay on diets designed to control chronic diseases.
While providing quality food can be costly, advocates like Mr. Bello say they save money in the long run by helping to cut health care expenditures. Since the health system started providing fresh unprocessed food, there has been a lot less waste, because patients are more satisfied and rarely request another meal. In the past, nearly 19 percent of all meals were returned and had to be replaced.
Still, challenges remain. Hospital kitchens are often antiquated and falling apart, Chef Tison said. Staff members are often leery of the changes in their accustomed cooking routines.