• Resources
  • Publications
  • Presentations
  • Legislation, Testimony,
    and Position Statements
  • Resolutions
• News & Events
  • Newsletter Articles
  • Media Articles
• Speakers' Bureau
  • Schedule a Presentation
  • Join the Speakers' Bureau
• Student Chapters
  • Stanford
  • Davis
  • UCSF
• What We Do
  • Our Team
  • Environmental Health Program
  • National and Global Security Program
  • Social Justice, Violence Prevention

Sustainable Food and Health

In collaboration with Health Care Without Harm, SF Bay Area PSR is working on a Healthier Foods in Health Care campaign, which supports local hospitals in transitioning toward sustainable food procurement practices and taking steps to improve the food choices that they are providing for staff, patients, and the community. The food-purchasing decisions that the health care industry makes not only affect the well-being of the people who will be consuming the food in their facilities, they also can have a profound effect on the environment and the direction of U.S. food system.

How food is produced and distributed affects its nutritional quality, the public's health, our shared environment and resources, and the social and economic fabric of our rural communities. The decisions that we as a society make about what to eat and where our food comes from can influence the health of our food system, particularly if large institutions make the shift to demanding healthier foods from distributors, buying more of their food products from local, small farms that are ecologically sound and socially responsible, and modeling dietary patterns that can help prevent disease. Hospitals and health care systems can play an important leadership role by setting a standard for other institutions to follow.

For more information about how to start a sustainable food program at your facility, download Implementing Local and Sustainable Food Programs in California Hospitals. Our most recent campaign, called Balanced Menus, a voluntary commitment by healthcare institutions to reduce their meat offerings in patient meals and hospital cafeterias by 20 percent in 12 months. Balanced Menus is a climate change reduction strategy that also protects the effectiveness of antibiotics and promotes good nutrition. A free brochure can be downloaded here. For more information about the Balanced Menus Challenge, click here.

To join the SFPSR Food Working Group and for more information, contact Lena Brook: lena@sfbaypsr.org.