Healthy Food Pledge

In healthcare facilities from across the country there is a growing awareness that our food system is misaligned with U.S. dietary guidelines and that hidden behind these nutritional imbalances, is a food system largely reliant on methods of production and distribution that impact public and environmental health.

To date, over 250 hospitals around the country have signed the Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge, and are implementing policies and programs, in stepwise fashion, which demonstrate a commitment to "first, do no harm and treating food and its production and distribution as preventive medicine that protects the health of patients, staff, and communities.

By supporting the Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge facilities are demonstrating leadership by sending an important signal to the marketplace about their interest in local, nutritious, sustainable food and modeling healthy food practices.

To support the pledge simply download the Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge and follow the attached instructions.

The Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge

We pledge to:

• Work with local farmers, community-based organizations and food suppliers to increase the availability of locally-sourced food.
• Encourage our vendors and/or food management companies to supply us with food that is, among other attributes, produced without synthetic pesticides and hormones or antibiotics given to animals in the absence of diagnosed disease and which supports farmer health and welfare, and ecologically protective and restorative agriculture.
• Implement a stepwise program to identify and adopt sustainable food procurement. Begin where fewer barriers exist and immediate steps can be taken. For example, the adoption of rBGH free milk, fair trade coffee, or introduction of organic fresh fruit in the cafeteria.
• Communicate to our Group Purchasing Organizations our interest in foods that are identified as local and certified.
• Educate and communicate within our system and to our patients and community about our nutritious, socially just and ecological sustainable food healthy food practices and procedures.
• Minimize or beneficially reuse food waste and support the use of food packaging and products which are ecologically protective.
• Develop a program to promote and source from producers and processors which uphold the dignity of family, farmers, workers and their communities and support sustainable and humane agriculture systems.
• Report annually on implementation of this Pledge.

See who's on the current list of Pledge hospitals.