Dr. Eileen Wong (left) and Dr. Annie Lalande (right)
As inflation rises and supply chains grow taut, British Columbians are more thoughtful than ever about food security and waste.
Food waste is an issue that's not new for institutions, says Dr. Eileen Wong, and one that she's sought to address in long term care at Holy Family Hospital (Providence Health Care), by looking at it from the perspective of resident quality of life and enjoyment.
Recognizing how often enjoyment of food – or lack thereof – came up in family meetings with staff at Holy Family Hospital's long term care, in early 2018, she started a quality improvement project measuring the amount of food that LTC residents weren't finishing and to understand why, as it was a consistent cause of concern for families.
“We want the best possible food experience for the residents," Eileen explains. “The idea came from idea of 'food is medicine' for the soul. We all eat food, we all need food, make it the best we can especially for people who are vulnerable. It's important that we take that extra time and effort to make the food experience better."
By making some simple changes, such as reducing portion sizes while retaining needed calories, food waste from cognitively intact residents dropped by half from December 2018 to September 2019. At the same time, the team learned that things like taste, temperature and texture were more important than dishware or surroundings.
Producing, distributing and preparing food all takes resources and energy – water, fertilizer, fossil fuel – so health care institutions have a responsibility to consider how this impacts planetary health, and what we can do to make improvement, explains Eileen.
We also have an opportunity and responsibility to consider ethnically appropriate foods in health care, she says, by considering introducing plant-based meal options or those informed by cultural background or religious beliefs.
Dr. Annie Lalande, a resident physician working with VCH in Dr. Andrea MacNeill's Planetary Health Lab, led a similar study of 100 surgical patients at VCH. Over the 12 weeks of the study, which weighed the amount of unconsumed food at each meal served to the patients, more than 565 kilos of food were wasted. It's not uncommon, she says. On average in Canadian hospitals, about 50 percent of food served to patients is thrown out.
“When you consider this in the context of the thousands of admissions we have at VGH alone every year, it's striking," Annie says. “We have seen even more clearly over the last year how the planetary climate and ecological crisis is a health crisis as well. Food systems are major drivers in this, and malnourished patients have much higher healthcare demands. We are in a loop where food drives illness and ecological crises, which then leads to more health issues, which then drives the ecological crisis further. We have a vested interest in increasing health on all these levels."
While the program at Holy Family was interrupted by COVID, Eileen is trying to continue auditing food waste in all LTC facilities at PHC.
“We want a best possible food experience for the resident. When you're in long term care, the quality of your food becomes a central focus. As a physician there's very little we can due to chronic disease so quality of life is what we're looking at to improve."
