Not a fan of hospital food? They’re working to change that opinion
BOSTON – High atop the roof of a hospital power plant in the middle of the city, you’ll find something unexpected: A 7,000-square-foot oasis with a lush carpet of green, rows upon rows of mesclun, kale, rainbow chard and a sea of green and red tomatoes.
Farm manager Lindsay Allen is on her hands and knees, cutting sprays of leafy greens and arugula and packing them into boxes. These particular greens will go to the Boston Medical Center kitchen, where they will be prepared for use in the cafeteria salad bar.
Other times, vegetables are sent to the hospital’s preventive food pantry for low-income patients. Some will go to the demonstration kitchen in the cafeteria. And some will even make it onto patients’ meal trays.
Boston Medical Center is one of the burgeoning number of hospitals growing their own produce. For reasons ranging from increasing sustainability to encouraging healthier eating to strengthening community connections, these medical facilities have set up actual farms on their grounds, hiring farm managers to oversee the crops and inviting the community to help with harvesting.
“There is an increasing trend in hospital farms,” said Stacia Clinton, the national program director for Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Health Care program, which advises hospitals on ways to provide sustainable and nutritious food. “There’s a greater demand now for people to know where their food is coming from, and hospitals are looking for ways to connect people to their food more directly.”
Based on surveys by Practice Greenhealth, the membership arm of Health Care Without Harm, the percentage of its partner hospitals nationwide with farms or gardens has doubled since 2008: 13%-26% in 2016.
Boston Medical Center kicked off its inaugural season this past spring.
By the end of the year, the garden will have produced 5,000 pounds of produce, including green beans, squash, carrots and 802 pounds of tomatoes.
Other hospitals like Seattle Children’s Hospital have had a small garden for years but have recently sized up.
The hospital has expanded to include a dizzying variety of vegetables and fruits. The farm’s produce ends up in the hospital café in the form of salad bar items or mixed vegetables behind the hot serving line. Tomatoes can show up in patient meals as marinara sauce.
Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, Pa., has similar goals of reducing sodium. In the spring of 2016, it launched the half-acre Delema G. Deaver Wellness Farm to raise awareness about diet and nutrition.
“We were delving deeper into the health care needs in the community, and the major issues we were seeing were chronic diseases like hypertension and obesity,” said Chinwe Onyekere, associate administrator for the medical center. “All of these have a direct relationship with nutrition and diet.”