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Join the Balanced Menus Challenge!

What is Balanced Menus?

Balanced Menus is a voluntary commitment by healthcare institutions to reduce their meat offerings in patient meals and hospital cafeterias. Balanced Menus is a both a climate change mitigation strategy and an effort to bring sustainably-produced food into healthcare settings. This initiative was developed and piloted by SF-PSR, and nationally launched in partnership with Health Care Without Harm's Healthy Food in Healthcare Initiative.

Fourteen hospitals are already participating in the national Balanced Menus Challenge, committing to reduce their meat offerings in patient meals and hospital cafeterias by 20 percent over 12 months.

Why hospitals?

Healthcare can play a critical role in mitigating climate change. The industry's commitment to protecting public health gives it an important capacity to educate the public about global warming's serious projected health impacts and the need for action. And, as an energy-intensive industry and a large and growing part of the US economy, healthcare can make a difference by reducing its own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Why meat reduction? Some benefits:

Climate change mitigation: Lowering meat consumption, particularly red meat, can produce across-the-board reductions in GHG emissions. According to the United Nations, livestock production accounts for 18% of global GHG emissions. Reductions in emissions are important given current predictions that climate change can harm the health of human populations through poor air quality, heat morbidity and mortality, and the expanding range of infectious diseases.

Other environmental benefits: Livestock production is responsible for a variety of environmental problems, such as pollution from manure waste and fertilizer run-off that affect groundwater drinking supplies and air quality. These pollutants negatively affect human health through respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and the contamination of clean water supplies.

Health Benefits: On average, Americans eat 33% more meat than is recommended by the USDA. Additionally, approximately 70% of all antibiotics used in the US are given to healthy animals to promote growth and compensate for crowded conditions and poor husbandry practices in conventional animal production. This practice reduces the effectiveness of medically-relevant antibiotics and contributes to microbial resistance. Reducing meat consumption can lead to lower rates of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and antibiotic resistance.

What participating hospitals are saying:

"It was amazingly simple to make an impact on our carbon footprint by starting with small changes in our cafeteria and working our way up to the more complex patient menu. By implementing Balanced Menus, we are able to remain cost neutral, or even achieve savings for the hospital, not to mention the savings to our healthcare system that result from providing patients, staff and visitors healthier foods."
-Linda Hansen, CDM, CFPP, Director of Nutrition Services at St. Joseph Health System in Sonoma County, CA

What about results and impact?

UCSF Medical Center joined the Balanced Menus pilot project in January 2009 and implemented a new patient menu that Spring, with changes in the cafe coming shortly thereafter. In January, prior to the menu changes (which were done with the Balanced Menus concept in mind), they purchased a total of 3167 lbs of beef. In May 2009, after five months of Balanced Menus, they purchased 2004 lbs of beef, resulting in a 36% reduction in beef purchases and equivalent to 31 tons of greenhouse gases. UCSF has been focusing on menu changes and reduction of beef purchasing at this point, and have not yet arrived at Phase 2, which focuses on substituting conventionally-produced meat with a local, sustainably-produced meat.

At Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Director of Nutritional Services Linda Hansen was a very supportive early adopter of the Balanced Menus program, and began implementing changes in her cafe as early as fall 2008. By October 2009, she had reduced meat offerings and increased vegetarian entrees in both the cafe and the patient menu. She also systematically re-invested the cost savings from a reduced meat menu into sustainable choices for beef, chicken and produce. After one year of implementation, almost 5,000 pounds less meat was prepared in the hospital Cafe, equivalent to 150 tons of greenhouse gases. With the new patient menu, she expects to reduce meat by 7400 lbs annually, equivalent to 200 tons of greenhouse gases.

"As we debate health care reform in the US, it is important to recognize that eating less conventionally produced meat will reduce drivers of many of the major chronic diseases that threaten the sustainability of our health care system. It is good for people and good for the planet."
-Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, of the Science and Environmental Health Network.

For more information: Contact Lena Brook, 415-601-0504, lena@sfbaypsr.org

To join the Balanced Menus Challenge, check out the Healthcare Without Harm website: http://www.noharm.org/us_canada/issues/food/menus.php

Find more details in our brochure: BalancedMenus.pdf