Your roadmap to more plant-based items on patient menus

Patient menus are a paradox. When an individual is sick in the hospital, it’s an opportunity to clue them in on the power of food for healing, and especially plant-based food. At the same time, it’s unofficially proven that fried chicken and cheeseburgers can lead to higher patient satisfaction scores. We know plant-based menu items on the patient side directly correlate to better healing. So, how to bridge the gap?

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit dedicated to preventive medicine through better nutrition, with the notion that hospital food plays a role in easing some of the burden of chronic illness. Anna Herby, DHSc, RD, CDE, nutrition education specialist for the Physicians Committee, shares her expertise to help hospital foodservice pros find their own roadmap to more plant-based menu items, from tactics to try to recipes and handy fact sheets.

Diet fights disease and it’s been proven

Herby points to several studies on a plant-forward diet’s effect on overall health, including a Cleveland Clinic study in which cardiovascular patients followed a low-fat, vegetarian diet. Out of 177 heart patients, only one had a stroke the following year. “This shows how important diet can be in managing heart disease,” Herby says.

And it’s not just heart disease. The nutrients and fiber of a healthy diet can reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, making it really key for hospital dining teams to look at plant-based menus for patients. At this point, you can hear the record scratch, because patient menus are notoriously limited and hospitals often have dozens of therapeutic menus for different patients, such as renal, GI and more, and there’s skepticism as to how you could carry out a plant-based menu that the team is eager to share with patients, even those who not-so-secretly really want a cheeseburger.

“As a dietitian, I want to talk about plant-based hospital food, but people always ask, ‘But what about…? And ‘Where are they going to get protein?’ But a plant-based diet can absolutely meet a therapeutic diet,” Herby says. “Pretty much none of the diets are impossible to do plant-based.”

Another point, she adds, is that for most hospitals, “for every patient on a therapeutic diet, there is at least one patient on the plain old, regular diet. This is an opportunity for a patient to try something new and healthier.”

New and healthier doesn’t have to exclude comfort foods, either. At a recent American Hospital Association training webinar, A Clinical and Culinary Guide to Healthy Hospital Food, Herby outlined actual menus with plant-based swaps for dishes that hospitals can’t take off the menu for sentimental reasons, mac and cheese, ice cream cups, pad Thai, hot cocoa and more.

Herby also shared a very cool resource for plant-based hospital food, the Physician’s Committee’ Patient Recipe Book , a downloadable e-book with recipes focused on “the power plate,” consisting of fruits, whole grains, legumes and vegetables. Breakfast recipes include Sheet Pan Breakfast Potatoes, Tofu Scramble, Mixed Berry Overnight Oats and Blender Waffles. Lots of soup recipes come next, with comforting bowls like smoky potato soup, creamy carrot soup and rustic tomato soup. Plant-based entrees include Portobello Fajitas, Chickpea Cauliflower Masala, Lentil Bolognese and many more. Desserts like Blueberry Pear Crumble and No Bake Brownie Bites round out the recipe book, along with convenience meals, like Mango Rice Bowls and Hummus and Veggie Wraps.

‘Vulnerable moment’

Also a panelist on the webinar, Chef Dustin Harder, culinary specialist with the Physician’s Committee, spoke about those inevitable cheeseburger cravings and how to provide another way on the patient’s tray.

“You are catching people in this vulnerable moment when their body is trying to heal,” Harder says. “Dietitians have been educating patients and the public, they’re sharing research that overwhelmingly confirms that plant-based eating can not only prevent, but also reverse some diseases.”

Harder points to foods that are “healthy, healing but also delicious” as the building blocks of a plant-based patient menu. He described a hospital in Beirut that has gone 100% plant-based.

That’s encouraging, but as a chef, Harder recognizes the challenges. “The question is: How do we get more plant-based dishes on hospital menus? How can we make sure my father isn’t served a cheeseburger and fries right after heart surgery? This can be a long process, because it requires change and change is scary, so there’s resistance.”

Pushback and obstacles include education, cost, patient satisfaction scores (those pesky numbers that hospital foodservice lives and dies by), perception (“Everyone loves to say it’s terrible even if they haven’t tried it,” Harder says) and just plain old resistance to change.

“We’ve found the best approach is baby steps,” he says. “You find yourself excited about plant-based food and its benefits. But even if you start with just one item, if the staff loves it and tells patients about it enthusiastically, then it’s planting the seed. Water it over time. And then let it grow.”

Some ways to help the growth: Special tastings of new menu items, surveys with raffle prizes for motivation, and placing the plant-based item(s) as the primary option vs. an animal-based version. “Don’t let it get buried on the list,” Harder says. “Let them know they have the power to choose the healthier option.”

Education for those serving the meals is huge as well. “Make sure employees try the new menu items and have discussions about the benefits; this will empower them to be enthusiastic about offering plant-based options to their patients,” Harder says. These specialized fact sheets for special diets can help you find talking points backed up by science.

Change on patient menus, Harding says, can be “hard-earned, but as people become more aware of the plant-based benefits, it’s evolving.”

Harding shared examples of dishes currently on patient menus at hospitals: Quinoa cranberry tofu salad, roasted veggie and hummus wraps, chickpea potato coconut curry, tofu pad Thai, three-bean chili, vegan rice pudding and vegan carrot cake. You can find more real-world examples of successful plant-based menus here.

“These recipes are just delicious food,” he says, “that happens to be full of healing, healthful ingredients. Isn’t that what a hospital should be serving?”