RFK Jr., Oz push hospitals to serve better food

The Trump administration has been pushing hospitals to serve better food, and the nation’s top health officials have made another step in that direction.

U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, urged hospitals to make the pledge to serve healthier foods.

“We're launching the Make Hospital Food Healthier pledge and calling on hospitals across America to join us,” Kennedy said in a video with Oz posted on social media.

“Patients deserve meals made with real nutritious ingredients that support recovery, not highly processed foods that contribute to the chronic disease crisis,” Kennedy said.

While calling for hospitals and health systems to make the commitment, Oz also referred to recent guidance reminding hospitals that Medicare funding is tied to meeting federal guidelines on the food that they serve.

“We recently issued a reminder that any hospital which receives Medicare, which is virtually all of them, must ensure our inpatient meals meet individual nutritional needs,” Oz said. “Hospitals that take this pledge agree to work with us to ensure their nutrition services align with the dietary guidelines for Americans and support healing, recovery, and long-term health.”

The agency sent notices to hospitals in March urging them to choose high-protein foods, whole grains, while limiting processed foods and sugary drinks. Hospitals were also urged to use healthier methods of preparing food and to avoid deep drying. Health systems were reminded that adhering to federal dietary guidelines is a condition for receiving Medicare funding, which is essential to hospitals.

Kennedy has promoted healthier diets as a way to reduce obesity and the risk of chronic disease, and he has also taken up that campaign with hospitals as well.

Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor, told KFF Health News in April, that Kennedy’s legal authority to change hospital menus is questionable, but hospitals are likely to make changes to avoid potential battles with the health department.

"He doesn't have a legal basis to do this, but hospitals and nursing homes can't afford to ignore it altogether because of what it signals about potential enforcement action," Bagley told KFF.

Still, many would agree that some hospitals have room to improve when it comes to their menu offerings.

Dr. Linda Shiue, director of culinary medicine and lifestyle medicine at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, teaches a cooking and nutrition class for aspiring doctors at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.

Shiue told Chief Healthcare Executive® earlier this year that the quality of hospital food has been “a problem throughout history.”

Shiue says that hospital chefs have to be a big part of developing better menus, and she thinks that they are interested in the challenge.

“We need to actually engage the chefs more and engage their desire to have creativity and make delicious food that also is healthy,” Shiue says. “We're going to see a big change in our hospital food in the future.”

Kaiser Permanente has launched a pilot program in California to offer some completely plant-based entrees as options. “They were really pretty good,” Shiue says.

Some Pennsylvania hospitals have taken steps to upgrade their menus. The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania is administering the “Good Food, Healthy Hospitals” program. To date, 68 Pennsylvania hospitals have participated in that program.

Tampa General Hospital partnered with famed chef Geoffrey Zakarian, a familiar face to viewers of The Food Network, to transform the hospital’s menu. The hospital said last year that the menu resembles a Mediterranean diet and includes items such as grilled Gulf snapper and bistro hanger steak.

Northwell Health enlisted Bruno Tison to reimagine the New York health system’s food offerings several years ago. A chef who has earned Michelin stars, Tison is the vice president of food services and corporate executive chef within Northwell Health’s Office of Patient and Customer Experience.

In an interview with Northwell’s Leaders magazine, Tison said, “I looked at it as an opportunity to show people the importance of food in health care and to prove the value it would create. It’s about creating a new culture around food and nutrition in health care and making sure that culture and that vision goes through the entire system.”