First, they got rid of their deep-fat fryers. Now, hospitals across the region have stopped selling pop and sugary drinks as part of a push to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to food and health.
Offering more healthy fare in their cafeterias, shops and vending machines has even proven popular.
Carolyn Brennan, chief financial officer at Queensway Carleton Hospital, said the hospital’s cafeteria increased sales by $200 a day when it began making changes such as getting rid of fried foods, reducing processed meats, serving pizza with whole wheat crusts, offering nutritional information and getting rid of pop and sugary drinks.
“It has been great,” she said.
The Healthy Foods in Champlain Hospitals program is a region-wide effort to increase healthy food options and reduce unhealthy ones in hospital cafeterias, vending machines, shops and other outlets (separate from the food hospital patients are served).
Thai Chicken Wrap with Pita inside the cafeteria at the Queensway Carleton Hospital Monday (March 26, 2017).
They still have to convince fast-food franchises inside hospitals to follow suit, however. Hospitals in Ottawa are home to revenue-generating franchises such as Tim Hortons which are largely out-of-step with the move to only offer healthy food within hospitals, although they have added fresh fruit and limited sizes of some drinks. You may not be able to get french fries in the cafeteria, but you can still purchase a sugary cold drink and doughnut within the hospital.
Having franchises that reflect the healthy food push, said Brennan, is something Queensway Carleton is working on.
The healthy foods program came about, in part, because of a challenge, said Laurie Dojeiji, who is part of the Champlain Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Network, which aims to reduce heart disease and risk factors in the region. While working with school boards to promote healthier eating, Dojeiji said it was pointed out that hospitals continued to serve unhealthy food in their cafeterias instead of acting as role models.
“As health care settings, we really needed to walk the talk,” she said.
Hospitals across the Champlain region took up the challenge and have made changes in the food they offer to staff and the public.
Ottawa’s Yoni Freedhoff, medical director at the Bariatric Medical Institute, was a long-time critic of the food served in hospital cafeterias.
“Would you like fries with that angioplasty? Sadly, this is not as far-fetched as you might imagine,” Freedhoff and his co-author wrote in an editorial for the Canadian Medical Association published a decade ago.
Healthy items at the sandwich table inside the cafeteria at the Queensway Carleton Hospital Monday (March 26, 2017).
Since then, things have changed at hospitals in the Champlain Region. Its healthy foods program recently saw nine hospitals (out of 20 across the region) reach the program’s silver level, which includes getting rid of sugary drinks including pop in vending machines or cafeterias, adding more healthy options and removing or reducing unhealthy options including processed meats. To meet the bronze level requirements, hospitals stopped selling french fries and other deep-fried food, started to reduce sodium levels in soup and displayed calorie counts and nutritional information.
No hospital has yet met the program’s gold level standard, which includes getting rid of chocolate, chips, candy and pretzels. Dojeiji said she doesn’t know of any other group of hospitals tackling the issue in the same way and has fielded calls from hospitals across the country.
Brennan said representatives of the program met with officials from Tim Hortons when the program was introduced in the Champlain region, but had no luck convincing them to make major changes at franchises within Ottawa-area hospitals.
“We are not giving up on them,” she said.
Dojeiji said it will probably take longer for hospital franchises to reflect the healthy food push. “Each hospital manages these fairly long-term contracts.”
She added that “we are really trying to challenge our hospitals to look at the implications of diet-related illness on our health-care system.”
epayne@postmedia.com
