University of Michigan Health System says no more trans fats allowed in hospital food
By next month, no food prepared by retail food operations, including all patient meals, at the University of Michigan Hospitals will be made with the trans fats, U-M reported today in a news release.
The move is being made because trans fats have been widely recognized as being unhealthy and of contributing to obesity, the hospital said.
Foods are not being replaced, but are being made with modified recipes or new menu items made with healthier fats to eliminate the trans fats, Craig Luck, contract administrator for hospital operations said in the release. Customers should notice no change in taste, it said.
The hospital is joining a number of hospitals, including New York City hospitals and Kaiser Permanente’s Anaheim hospital in California, that have banned trans fats.
MidMichigan Health group also announced today it would ban trans fats from its food operations in 2010.
Other entities that have banned the use of trans fat in foods. New York City restaurants have been banned from using trans fats since 2006, a ban on trans fats passed for Boston food businesses in 2008 and a similar ban in Baltimore took effect earlier this year.
The ban includes all cafes on health system property, all vending machines and vendors, such as Einstein Bros. Bagels in U-M hospital's cafeteria. The ban will follow the governments trans-fat-free standard, which means the trans fat content is less than .5 grams per serving. Snacks sold in the gift shop operations are not included in the ban.
Trans fats are unhealthy fats that form when vegetable oil hardens in a process called hydrogenation and can cause an increase in low-density lipoproteins, or bad fat, and a decrease in high-density lipoproteins, good fat, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Hydrogenated fats, or "trans fats," are often used to keep some foods fresh for a long time and are often used for cooking in restaurants, are found in vegetable shortenings and some margarines and snack foods made with those ingredients.
Tina Reed covers health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. You can reach her at tinareed@annarbor.com, call her at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.
Comments
PJ
Tue, Dec 22, 2009 : 7:51 a.m.
What? bad hospital food to get worse?! Why even go to the hospital any more!?
Tina Reed
Sun, Dec 20, 2009 : 10:53 a.m.
Interesting you bring up Pollan's work and the correlation between poverty and obesity. You might want to check out a piece we posted about the challenge it takes to get healthy foods to a growing population in the Ann Arbor area who need help getting a meal at all: http://www.annarbor.com/news/getting-healthy-food-to-ann-arbor-residents-concerned-about-eating-at-all-poses-challenge/
trina smith
Sat, Dec 19, 2009 : 2:58 p.m.
This is great news! Perhaps eliminating high fructose corn syrup, an ingredient found in nearly all processed foods, would be a second step? According to Michael Pollan, it's not just supersized portions and sedentary lifestyles that make obesity the second-highest cause of preventable death in the United States.....it's corn. When exploring the causes of the obesity epidemic, Pollan, a contributing editor to the New York Times Magazine and proponent of "food-chain journalism," focused on the subsidized overproduction of corn. One result is a surfeit of high-fructose corn syrup, which accounts for 20 percent of the daily calories of many children. Our dependence on maize, he explains, is an environmental problem as much as a public-health one: "Modern corn hybrids are the greediest of plants, demanding more nitrogen fertilizers than any other crop. Runoff from these chemicals finds its way into groundwater and into the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, where it has already killed off marine life in a 12,000-square-mile area." When you go to the grocery store, you find that the cheapest calories are the ones that are going to make you the fattest--the added sugars and fats in processed foods. The correlation between poverty and obesity can be traced to agricultural policies and subsidies. Corn is an efficient way to get energy calories off the land and soybeans are an efficient way of getting protein off the land, so we've designed a food system that produces a lot of cheap corn and soybeans resulting in a lot of cheap fast food. The added sugar in our diet is coming from corn, and the added fat is coming partly from corn but mostly from soybean oil. Everything at McDonald's is, in some shape or form, a product of corn and/or soybeans.
billy
Sat, Dec 19, 2009 : 3:34 a.m.
Good for them! Good for them!
a2phiggy
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 6:30 p.m.
As a 'frequent flyer' at U of M Hospital, I can honestly say that trans fat is the LAST thing nutritional services needs to worry about. Despite a massive body of research demonstrating the links between proper nutrition and physical and emotional healing, the food and drink offerings to inpatients are atrocious, and the amount of food wasted due to late delivery, poor quality or taste, or restrictions that are not heeded by staff is an embarrassment. I was recently admonished by staff after I complained about a meal that contained wheat, something I am highly allergic to. Luckily I was coherent enough to identify it myself, but they were simply annoyed. Clearly there is a gap in practice and policy between the practitioners who give such great care and the nutritional services department, and it is that gap, not trans fats, that should be their priority.
ChildeJake
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 4:35 p.m.
It doesn't matter to me. I can't afford any of the hospital's life-saving services so I don't expect to eat there any time soon.
kittybkahn
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 3:36 p.m.
I agree with Jake C. This is a good start, but let's get really healthy food in our hospitals. I always thought it was ironic that the "food" served in hospitals is such junk. It's about time!!!
Tina Reed
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 2:40 p.m.
Slug: There is no longer a Wendy's in U-M hospital's cafeteria. That vendor location is occupied by Einstein Bros. Bagels which will have to meet the trans-fat-free standard.
ez12c
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 2:35 p.m.
Hey SLUG, What Wendy's? How about McDonalds, BK, TacoBell, etc etc etc
slug
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 1:59 p.m.
What about the Wendy's?? (I always thought it was odd to have fast-food inside a hospital....)
garrisondyer
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 1:26 p.m.
I distinctly remember learning about how bad these fats are for your body sometime in the early years of this decade. So why did it take the "Leaders and Best" until the last weeks of 2009 to make this no-brainer decision? The thought of a whole health complex serving food laced with ingredients that are shown to be bad for you is absolutely outrageous.
Jake C
Fri, Dec 18, 2009 : 12:48 p.m.
Sounds like a good start to me, but I bet most hospitals could go a lot further in serving the dietary needs of their patients. My wife had a child at St. Joe hospital in September, and she wasn't interested in eating probably half the food she was served because of its massive sodium content and mediocre nutritional value (not to mention the bland taste). Thankfully fresh fruits were always available down the hallway. Shouldn't healthy meals be the starting point of our country's health system, and not just an afterthought? I understand it's not easy to make a diverse range of foods for hundreds of people each day at a reasonable cost, but our bodies are literally made from the foods we eat each day!