Hospital food has been the brunt of jokes for decades, but hospitals across Pennsylvania are stepping up their game by making healthy and gourmet options available year round. One, St. Luke’s University Health Network and the Rodale Institute, even planted an organic farm at Anderson Campus. The farm provides locally grown organic produce for the network, contributing to a holistic health care experience, and supporting a community partner.
In Philadelphia, emphasis has been placed on transforming the hospital food environment for employees, patients, and visitors through the “Good Food, Healthy Hospitals” initiative, a government-funded program adopted at 12 hospitals.
Program participant Lankenau Medical Center in suburban Wynnewood has won accolades for operating its own organic farm. The Delema G. Deaver Wellness Farm, located on the medical center’s campus, brings fresh produce directly to patients, visitors, and the community. Pop-up food and nutrition demonstrations often take place in a waiting room, allowing patients to carry produce home after a doctor visit.
Temple University Hospital is another participant that transformed its cafeteria with seasonal fruits and vegetables, changing its menu to reflect what’s in season, just like farm-to-fork restaurants.
Fresh veggies are front and center at Danville-based Geisinger Health System, which piloted a Fresh Food Pharmacy where doctors write “prescriptions” for free healthy food for food-insecure, diabetic patients, and in the summer it operates a weekly Get Fresh produce stand stocked with local fruits and veggies.
Some cafeteria menus sound like they’re straight out of a Food Network show. The April features at the James Street Cafe at Lancaster General Hospital are leafy greens, kale Caesar salad, and a sweet and savory blackberry BBQ sandwich. The Rotunda Cafe at Penn State Hershey Medical Center serves Peruvian chicken with green sauce and cranberry sunflower kale salad.
Excela Health in Greensburg is making sure good health goes home with its patients. It has partnered with 19 area restaurants to help residents with congestive heart failure enjoy a healthy meal by affixing a Heart Center logo next to CHF-friendly menu items.
No longer associated with bland meals and limited choices, cafeterias and food service operations in many Pennsylvania hospitals are making sure healthy food choices taste good, too.