In recent years many people have given up meat and animal products to improve their health. Despite the individual movement to regain health through a plant-based diet, when people went into a hospital for treatment there were not typically given options that fit into their healthy eating plan. Most hospitals serve patients meat, veggies, starchy sides, bread, puddings, and traditional hospital fare.
Hospitals are Listening and Offering Plant-Based Dining Options
Thankfully hospitals have started listening and have upped their games in terms of meal options. Plant-based hospital food is now being served at some select hospitals. Hopefully, this meal plan will soon be a dining option at all hospitals nationwide. It makes sense that if people are in the hospital to get better, their food aims to improve their health.
What is Plant-Based Eating?
While several food eating styles focus on avoiding animal products, many still allow people to eat highly processed snacks and treats that are anything but healthy. For example, vegans can still eat many brands of cream-filled chocolate cookies, as there are no animal products in the ingredients. These cookies are highly processed, full of sugar, full of empty calories, and have zero health benefits for the person eating them.
With a plant-based diet, a person focuses on eating healthy plant foods. Some people take their health a step farther and choose to eat whole foods, plant-based, and no oil, or WFPBNO. Whole foods are foods that are whole, unrefined, and made of minimally refined ingredients. Plant-based foods are foods that do not include animal products like meat, milk, or eggs.
Those who eat WFPBNO avoid honey. Honey is also considered an animal-based food, and it is a food sweetener, so honey is avoided by many plant-based community members. While vegan patients can eat foods containing oil, sugar, and highly processed ingredients, people on a whole food plant-based diet cannot eat those things. People eating a whole-food plant-based diet also aim to avoid foods that contain sweeteners, bleached flour, oil, and white rice.
The Foods Plant-Based Hospitals are Serving
Many people worry that plant-based food options are limited since many traditional foods are taken off of the plant-based food list. Many people want to know what hospitals are serving on their plant-based menus. While a plant-based diet can limit many foods people traditionally eat on the standard American diet, there are many delicious foods that plant-based hospital chefs can whip up for staff, patients, and hospital guests.
Foods served at plant-based hospitals can include:
- Brown rice
- Whole grains
- Fresh salads
- Veggie lasagna
- Vegetable-based casseroles
- Soups
- Whole fruits
- Vegetables
- Tubers
- Legumes
- Plant-based desserts
The list above shows that there are many foods a person can eat on a plant-based diet. Hospitals are hiring professionally trained chefs who specialize in plant-based eating to offer food that is both delicious and healthy to their patients, staff, and hospital guests. Despite what some people may think, there are many delicious food options for people following this eating plan.
Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet
Are there benefits for people who follow a plant-based or WFPBNO diet? Absolutely! The benefits are why many hospitals are hiring plant-based chefs to cook food for their patients. Commonly seen benefits of this eating plan include:
- Weight loss
- Disease prevention
- Possible disease reversal
- Environmental benefits
A Plant-Based Diets Helps Improve Patient BMI
Some people start with a plan to temporarily eat plants and whole foods to lose weight and then eat this way permanently for the rest of their lives as they like how they feel when their body is running on plants. Many doctors put patients on this natural diet to improve their body mass index or BMI. Those who eat this way tend to drop excess pounds and weight less than people who eat the traditional American diet.
A plant-based diet has been proven to make it easy for people to lose weight and keep the weight off long-term without the need for counting calories. When people are no longer consuming oil, cheese, white bread, sugar, or meat, they can eat a larger volume of food for a fraction of their traditional calories. For example, three ounces of cheese is approximately 342 calories, while three ounces of lettuce is approximately 12 calories. A person could eat a huge salad and end up consuming a small portion of the calories they would typically consume in a meal.
Plant-Based Diets are Known to Help with Disease Prevention and Reversal
Many doctors switch their patients to a whole food plant-based diet because studies have shown it has many health benefits. This way of eating is said to prevent, halt, or even reverse many chronic diseases. Some of the most popular diseases this eating plan can improve or reverse altogether include heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
This diet is great for a person's health, but if it can reverse their medical conditions, the patient will save money. How can a person save money eating a plant-based diet? If the person's health improves and they reverse some of their medical conditions, they will no longer have to pay for insulin, blood pressure, cholesterol, or other medications. A person's physician will monitor their health and decide if the diet has improved their health enough to lower their medication dose or stop taking it altogether.
A Plant-Based Diet is Great for the Environment
Some people go plant-based for the environment. A plant-based diet places much less stress on the environment than the traditional American diet does. Diets that include meat and animal products are said to further the negative effects on water systems, global warming, air quality, antibiotic resistance, and more. Plants are great for the air and good for the Earth and are the right choice for those who want to lower their carbon footprint through diet choices.
As shown above, there are many benefits to eating this way. Hospitals are now offering plant-based foods to their patients, as the medical community has seen firsthand how a plant-based diet is great for everyone. Anyone in the hospital or visiting someone in the hospital should ask and see if there is a plant-based meal option available for them to try.
