FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY: “HEALTHY GARDEN”
(Part 4 of 8 Green Hospitals)
FOREWORD
Feeding is a physiological act that involves social and cultural interactions. The history of Hospital Nutrition and diet therapy has developed parallel to medical science and sociocultural evolution.
Throughout history, food has gone from being a factor of strict survival to an element that is capable of modulating and modifying this situation and converting it so that it is adequate, healthy, deficient or disproportionate.
The relationship between food and health has been considered essential since Classical Greek Medicine.
Thus, Hippocrates already indicated:
“Let your medicine be your food and food be your medicine.”
CURRENT PROBLEM
Hospital Food is a complex industrial process that has multiple actors and action plans.
Professionals working in Hospital Food constantly try to improve quality, portion sizes, preparation and cooking techniques, menu breadth, diet request systems, and ease of orderly access to food for patients. admitted, meal times, etc.
All of these initiatives contribute to maintaining and improving the nutritional status of patients and, above all, to REDUCE the percentage of discarded food.
The problem of industrialized food with preservatives and agrochemicals that are harmful to our health leads us to notice that, little by little, we are introducing the concept of GREEN HOSPITALS with the desire to get involved in actions that help us take care of the environment.
CONSEQUENCES
The quality of the diet and the clinical condition of the patient can be a cause of decreased nutrient consumption and cause hospital malnutrition, which increases the length of stay and healthcare costs.
The severity of physical conditions such as overweight and obesity are related to the consumption of ultra-processed products with high amounts of sugar, sodium and fat, which increases the morbidity and mortality rate.
We propose HEALTHY GARDENS and the production of healthy natural resources without pesticides or agrochemicals for food self-sufficiency in solidarity with the environment.
SOLUTIONS
The techniques of the gastronomic industry together with hospital dietetics have promoted the continuous improvement of quality processes required by health accreditation standards and the same competition in the sector.
The regulation of hospital gardens provides a self-sufficient and healthy diet for the consumption of patients and staff, taking advantage of all the resources that nature provides to produce healthy vegetables.
THE FUTURE WHERE WE ARE GOING
Health institutions with organic gardens and homemade preparations without pesticides that tend towards self-sufficiency.
Cultivate, nourish and preserve a healthy diet through the systematization of hospital processes, habits and problems.
The secondary use of these gardens as therapeutic spaces for patients where conditions are generated to recover productive, work and social bonding habits.
SYNTHESIS:
We advise Health Institutions on actions focused on providing healthy food and production based on their own crops, in addition to promoting healthy eating habits in both patients, users and employees that make up each of their hospital communities.
This self-production allows access to a great nutritional contribution, as well as generating savings in the institutional economy.
CONCLUSION:
HEALTHY GARDENS are productive and valuable since they allow us to access quality vitamins and minerals; which positively influences a better and faster recovery of patients, as well as reducing costs.
Its formation contributes to making hospitals institutions that promote environmental care and sanitation with great value on a human scale.
Promoting comprehensive health of people and their community.
AUTHOR:
●MARCELO FABIÁN SAITTA
UNIVERSITY SPECIALIST DOCTOR IN PEDIATRICS
●LAURA SILVIA ADDUCI
UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SPECIALIST IN NEUROSURGERY
●MARÍA VERÓNICA VIÑAS CHACIOR
MEDICAL SPECIALIST IN GENERAL SURGERY
TOGETHER WORK WITH BALGREEN.ORG.
●DELFINA FRERS CEO &
●DR. DIEGO BALVERDE
