Celebrating a Successful Year of Healthy and Sustainable Food in Health Care
The Healthy Food in Health Care program celebrated Food Day with several hospitals across the nation on October 24. Food Day  is a nationwide celebration and movement for healthy, affordable, and sustainable food. This year, health care had much to celebrate, from coast to coast.
In California, hospitals and local NGOs developed a Regional Produce Purchasing Project to increase the market share dedicated to sourcing food from family farms. The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) is now successfully selling to three hospitals in the Bay Area. "This summer, these hospitals regionally sourced over 6,000 pounds of locally-grown, and in some cases, organic produce," noted Lucia Sayre, Co-Coordinator of Healthy Food in Health Care Program.
In Maryland, other purchasing efforts have mushroomed through the Buy Local Challenge. "Participation in this Challenge is a great way for hospitals to engage their entire communities in thinking about the choices we make about our food," commented Louise Mitchell, Mid-Atlantic sustainable foods program manager of the Healthy Food in Health Care Program. "Most of the 53 hospitals in Maryland who took this year's Challenge are now buying local fruits and vegetables throughout the year, and 11 are buying local sustainable beef and/or poultry regularly." In total, 77 hospitals across the country participated in this Challenge, and spent over $75,000 in local food.
Looking ahead to 2013, Healthy Food in Health Care aims to track more of these success stories of sustainable food service in the health care sector. Be on the look-out for the biannual Healthy Food in Health Care National Survey & Awards Program. The next survey will be disseminated in January 2013, and the Awards Ceremony will take place at the Health Care Without Harm national CleanMed Conference on April 24-26, 2013 in Boston, MA. Register today and consider submitting an ePoster on Healthy, Sustainable Foods in Health Care by December 21.
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Energy and Water Efficiency in Health Care: How Swedish Medical Center is Saving Money and Energy
Healthy Food in Health Care is a regular contributor to Practice Greenhealth's Greenhealth magazine. Our upcoming winter column, written by John Stoddard, New England Healthy Food in Health Care Coordinator, will address energy and water efficiency in health care. An excerpt is below.According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the health care industry is the second largest commercial energy user in the U.S. The first largest? The food services industry. Furthermore, health care facilities are often a community's largest consumers of water, and Food Services account for approximately nine percent of that water use. Water and energy use are linked because increased water use often means increased energy use: about eight percent of the U.S. energy demand is used to treat, pump, and heat water. This information, of course, does not mean that that hospital kitchens have to be bigger energy users than other commercial kitchens. When Swedish Medical Center in Seattle was planning the construction of a new hospital in Issaquah Washington, it included energy and water efficiency in its considerations for purchasing new equipment for its kitchens. Its new facility now uses a food waste collector system in place of disposal, and saves approximately eight gallons of water per minute of operation, and over $6,000 annually. "Another great benefit of the system is that it collects the food waste for composting, instead of sending it down the drain to the sewer system," said Eric Eisenberg, Corporate Executive Chef for Nutrition, Catering, Retail & Conference Services at Swedish. He added: "this saves the community money and resources downstream for treatment of the waste water." With the savings on its water bills, plus the reduced energy costs because Swedish is no longer running a disposal, Eisenberg expects a timely return on the investment. Check out Healthy Food in Health Care's detailed tips for Energy and Water Conservation in hospital food service in Greenhealth's upcoming winter edition. While you're waiting, Practice Greenhealth's Sustainability Dashboard supports tracking water and energy use and conservation - we recommend you take a look.
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Policy Update: GM in the Elections and the Agriculture Appropriations Bill - Take Action!
In last November's election, California's Proposition 37, which would have required foods in California with Genetically Modified (GM) ingredients to be labeled as such, was defeated at the polls. If it had passed, Proposition 37 could have affected food labeling across the nation.
Medical professional associations throughout the U.S., such as the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the California Medical Association (CMA), support GM labeling. GM products have not been adequately assessed for their adverse effects on human or animal health, or on the environment in which they are produced. There are also growing health concerns around the increased use of pesticides necessary to treat and grow GM crops.
As Dr. Robert Gould, associate adjunct professor in the University of California - San Francisco Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and president of the San Francisco chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility points out: "Physicians also need to know what their patients are eating...if you're following your patient and something comes up and there's a question about food allergens or side effects from substances, absent labeling, it is very
difficult to track potential health impacts."
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GM is back in the legislative spotlight with the Agriculture Appropriations Bill currently in Congress.
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While Proposition 37 was defeated at the California polls, GM is back in the legislative spotlight with the national Agriculture Appropriations Bill currently in in Congress. The biotech industry has inserted a biotech-friendly policy rider (section 733) into the Bill. Though wrapped in a "farmer-friendly" package, this "farmer assurance provision" is simply a biotech industry ploy to continue to plant GM crops. The provision undermines the USDA's oversight of GM crops, interferes with the U.S. judicial review process, and could be unconstitutional. It is also completely unnecessary and serves only to offer "assurance" to biotech companies like Monsanto, not farmers. Read more and take action on our website. In response, Representative Peter DeFazio (D- Oregon, 4th) has authored a "Dear Colleague" letter opposing the biotech rider and is urging his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to join him. There is only a short period of time for Congress to resolve the Farm Bill before the end of the lame duck session. Contact your local Representatives today, and ask them to support Representative DeFazio's Dear Colleague letter opposing the biotech rider, and ask your Senators to urge Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye to oppose the rider. Read more about GM food in our position statement. Additionally, to learn more about research and safety around GM food, check out the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition's (HEN) recent webinar, archived online. |
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News from the Field: Local and Sustainable Food Purchasing at UCLA
The University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System in southern California has experienced great success with increasing organic and local food purchases and sales in its cafeterias. UCLA has close to 1,000 inpatient beds, and sees tens of thousands of patients on an annual basis. Despite its large size, on average, 65 percent of the produce that UCLA's self-operating Food Service Department buys is local (within 250 miles) and/or organic, and 90 percent of its dairy is local and rBGH-free. UCLA Health System signed the Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge in 2011.
Many of UCLA's recent sustainable food commitments are the result of a University of California (UC)-wide Sustainability Policy, which requires that 20 percent of the UC System's entire food purchases must be "sustainable" by 2020. Watch videos about how university dining halls in the UC System are dealing with sustainable food procurement online.
UCLA's Health System's Wellness Initiative, which promotes healthy living and eating, has complemented the Sustainability Policy. As a result of these two initiatives, UCLA's Food Service overhauled its food offerings. It eliminated fried foods from its cafeterias, and moved fresh fruit close to the checkout stand to increase point-of-sale purchases of fruit. To promote salad sales, Food Service reduced prices at the salad bar, and labels organic and locally-grown vegetables. Hot-entrée items featuring local and organic food are also labeled, and portion sizes are posted throughout the cafeteria.
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Fruit near the checkout, to increase point-of-sale purchases
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Increasing healthy and sustainable food has not been costly. Says Director of Nutrition for UCLA Health System, Patti Oliver, "with the elimination of fried food and the reduction of price in the salad bar, we were concerned that our revenue would go down, but in the long-run, it has really gone up. We spent 3-4 months working on alternate recipes for fried food recipes that were so popular."
Finding food and produce that met the UC System definition of "local," however, was initially challenging. "In the beginning, it was very comical," shares Oliver. "Our vendor would call and ask if something is grown here, but it's then transported there to be processed, is that considered 'local'?" Oliver regularly has conversations with the Sustainability Office and other Food Service Directors in the UC System about how to resolve these issues. "We're still talking about this one," she admitted, "but now our vendors are very aware, and are working with us to find what we consider 'sustainable.'" We are excited to welcome Oliver to the Healthy Food in Health Care team in 2013 as a part-time coordinator in Los Angeles. Oliver will be working with our organizers in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego to ramp up the food work throughout California.
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About Us
The Healthy Food in Health Care Program is a national initiative of Health Care Without Harm, which works with hospitals across the country to help improve the health and sustainability of their food services. For more information about the Healthy Food in Health Care Program, and to access a variety of tools and resources, visit www.healthyfoodinhealthcare.org.
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| Pledge Update |
Total Pledge Signers: 415
We welcome the following facilities who signed the pledge since September:Hoag Hospital Irvine, CAHoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, CAMethodist Hospital of Southern California, CAPalomar Health Downtown Campus, CA Palomar Medical Center, CAPocono Medical Center, PAScripps Green Hospital, CAScripps Memorial La Jolla, CATenet - Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, CAFind out more about the Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge online.
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| Upcoming Events | 1. Promising Approaches: Food Prescription Training, February 5, Detroit, Michigan
Come learn about a promising approach to addressing obesity and chronic diseases from our partners at the Washtenaw Health Department Prescription for Health Program. For more information, contact Kathryn Savoie, Detroit Community Health Director, Ecology Center at Kathryn@ecocenter.org, or you can visit this website.
2. Implementing Healthy Beverages in Hospitals, Webinar Rebroadcast, February 7, 2ET
Join Healthy Food in Health Care for a rebroadcast of our popular Healthy Beverages webinar from July 2012. More details will be available on our website soon.
3. FoodMed joins CleanMed in Boston, April 24-26
FoodMed is the nation's premier conference on sustainable foods in the health care sector. Register online today. Healthy Food in Health Care's biannual awards will be announced. Green journalist Bill McKibben will also be a keynote speaker. Stay tuned for more details.
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New Resources
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1. Local&Sustainable Purchasing, Recorded Webinar
Hospitals and health care systems have the opportunity to support a sustainable food system through their purchasing decisions. The recording and details for this webinar, the second of HCWH's three-part webinar series, are now available online.
2. Balanced Menus, Recorded Webinar
Hospitals and health care systems across the country are reducing their meat procurement to align with national dietary recommendations, reduce costs and purchase sustainably-raised meats, and decrease their carbon footprint. The recording and details for this webinar, the last of HCWH's three-part webinar series, are now available online.
3. Rethink Your Drink: Healthy Beverage Toolkit for Health Care
This best practice guide and toolkit is an example of strategies and best practices for implementing a successful healthy beverage program in the health care setting. This toolkit was developed as a collaborative effort between HCWH, Illinois Public Health Institute, and the American Heart Association, and is available here. For more information on crafting a region-specific toolkit for facilities, contact us.
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2013 Calendars
| | Our newly revised 2013 Food Matters Calendar will soon be available to download from our website. These calendars make excellent marketing tools for hospitals that are engaged in the Healthy Food in Health Care Program. We encourage you to print multiple copies to give away to your staff and patients, and to hang up in your facilities.
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Healthy Food in Health Care in the News
| 1. Gary Cohen, founder of Health Care Without Harm, was named Food Hero by Cooking Light
2. The Nation magazine recently featured Healthy Food in Health Care's local food work, written by Kendra Klein, Healthy Food in Health Care Coordinator
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| Contact Us | If you would like more information about this newsletter, or would like to feature a health care facility in our next issue, contact Sapna Thottathil, Healthy Food in Health Care Program: sapna@sfbaypsr.org.
For more information about the Healthy Food in Health Care Program, contact one of our regional organizers. |
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