Few sick people consider the quality of the food when choosing a hospital. Even in America, a country where private hospitals have long provided individual rooms with such comforts as personal cable television, patients are often still fed institutional food. "Mystery meat" and processed-cheese slices are common; everything gets cooked in a microwave.
More hospitals are starting to feed their patients better food. Intermountain, an on-profit group based in Utah that runs 32 hospitals across the Mountain West, has served freshly made meals to patients. Chefs in proper kitchen snow source local ingredients to serve in cafeterias. Doctors are consulted to meet patients' dietary needs. Christopher Delissio, the head chef at Intermountain, describes creating a meal for a Mexican child who was being treated for cancer. "He would not eat," Mr Delissio recalls, and that was making it harder for him to recover from chemotherapy. "I was able to go upon the floor and speak to this boy's parents and him and kind of figure out what he wanted," he says.
"The link between eating well and good health has long been clear," says David, a nutrition specialist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Heart disease, which has a direct connection to diet, is America's biggest killer. Roughly two-fifths of American adult s are clinically obese, and over 14% suffer from diabetes. "The right food can help patients avoid going back to hospital. Yet doctors themselves have often been slow to recognize the need to encourage healthy eating," says Dr Eisenberg. Most healthcare remains curative, rather than preventive.
A decade ago Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield opened a teaching kitchen where staff could help patients plan affordable healthy meals and learn how to cook them. The idea is now spreading widely. In October a conference for health and food professionals in Los Angeles will encourage the adoption of such kitchens. Participants will tour a new one that has just opened at UCLA's hospital.
