Vancouver General tests plant-based food for patients
Health officials in B.C. are touting the success of a pilot program at Vancouver General Hospital to serve more plant-based and sustainable food choices to patients.
Chickpea curry with cauliflower and cashews and Thai noodle dishes are some of the more than 20 new meal options staff have been serving patients over the past six months as part of the pilot. Not all the food is vegetarian; for example, one of the new dishes is made with steelhead trout.
However, Vancouver Coastal Health says the meals are more nutritious and environmentally sustainable than the typical meals served at most hospitals. “We started this project with the goal of creating flavourful, comforting meals using fresh, nutritionally dense ingredients so that patients had appealing food options to help them in their healing and recovery,” Darcia Pope, vice-president of strategy, innovation and planetary health at Vancouver Coastal Health, said in a statement Wednesday.
The Planetary Health Menu project was led by Dr. Annie Lalande, a surgical resident and PhD student in resources, environment and sustainability at the University of B.C., and Tiffany Chiang, director of food service transformation and strategic projects at VCH.
They brought together food services staff, dietitians, clinicians and planetary health experts to work alongside chef Ned Bell, a sustainable food champion, in developing the menu items, according to a news release from VCH.
The new dishes were evaluated by patients who provided feedback on the meal's desirability, VCH said.
Dishes that were favourably reviewed were served on a trial basis to in-patients at VGH. Feedback was solicited through surveys and interviews.
“Providing tasty, nutritious meals, which are critical to recovery from illness and injury, also presents a significant opportunity to decrease our environmental footprint by focusing on lower-impact ingredients,” Lalande said in a statement.
Now that the pilot has wrapped up, the menu items that patients enjoyed the most will be incorporated into menus in all of VCH's hospitals.