- Modify hospital menus and practices to support healthier food purchases by buying locally produced and organic produce.
- Make the hospital a “fast food free zone”; eliminate sugar-based soft drinks in hospital cafeterias and vending machines.
- Work with local farmers, community-based organizations and food suppliers to increase the availability of locally sourced, sustainably grown food.
- Encourage vendors and/or food management companies to supply food that is produced without synthetic pesticides and hormones or antibiotics given to animals in the absence of diagnosed disease, and which supports farmer and farmworker health and welfare, as well as ecologically protective and restorative agriculture.
- Implement a step-by-step program to identify and adopt sustainable food procurement. Begin where minimal barriers exist and immediate steps can be taken, for example, by introducting organic fresh fruit in the cafeteria.
- Educate and communicate within the hospital or health care system, as well as to patients and community, about nutritious, socially equitable and ecologically sustainable food practices and procedures.
- Minimize and beneficially reuse food waste. For instance, compost food waste or use it as animal feed. Convert cooking oil waste into biofuel.
- Make the hospital a center that promotes nutrition and healthy food by holding farmers’ markets for the surrounding community and fostering community gardens on hospital grounds.
