Brandon Smith is dietary manager/executive chef at Summit Pacific Medical Center—CAH, in Elma, Washington discussed food service's role in healthcare and the farm to hospital trend, in an interview on the Med City News website.
Among the challenges he faces for creating menus for people is the conflicting data on emerging diet trends.
"The challenge is to educate the consumer and provide a balanced approach that can be sustained throughout the patient’s life," he said.
Smith said it's great to see healthcare food service taking a more responsible role in educating the public on what healthy consumption is, from appropriate portion sizes to finding balance, to sustainable product sourcing.
"At the beginning of my career the focus was more on treating meals as clinical, much of the products hospitals used were processed with nutrition added, many of these products were not available to patients once they left the hospital so it could not help them to sustain a diet change."
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