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An Apple a Day Might Just Cut Profits
My mom said it. Her mom said it. I have even repeated it to my own children. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Yet as patients, healthcare professionals, and others who eat in our healthcare facilities around the country may notice, eating healthy fare – including apples – isn’t promoted among the food offerings in cafeterias or on patient food service trays. Often the most readily available foods in our healthcare facilities are laden partially or wholly processed foods with unhealthy levels of salt, sugar, and/or fat.
Why is it that healthy, nutrient rich foods are often more difficult to find at healthcare facilities when the rising levels of heart disease, Type II diabetes, and other serious health issues have at their core at least some component of nutritional trouble?
We are told bad food habits in America contribute to obesity and the health issues that often flow from our unhealthy eating habits, yet our health providers are complicit in making sure those bad eating habits are reinforced. What is that all about? Job security? Do our providers really want us to be healthier?
Another phrase my mom used to banter about was, “Do as I do, not as I say.” Well said, Mom. So when I recently saw a toddler reaching into the donut case as her breakfast choice at one of our leading hospitals, should I have blamed her mother for allowing her child to eat the high sugar, high fat, low nutrient offering? Or might I wonder why a leading hospital chooses to have a donut case at the front lines of the cafeteria like the candy counters at the grocery stores? Why encourage bad eating?
In that same hospital cafeteria where the toddler poked the donuts one by one with her index finger before finally choosing one (I am not making that up), the section with fresh fruit and whole grain cereals and other healthy choices was in the back, darkly lit section. Why wouldn’t we put the fresh fruit up front and remove the ice cream and other frozen, sugar treat coolers? Many hospitals and clinics also have big fried food stations, pizza counters, and their own burger stands. Why? Why sell saturated fat? Why sell processed foods?
For the life of me – really for my life and yours – I cannot imagine a good reason for our healthcare providers to serve unhealthy foods.
I know a great deal of focus on improving nutrition has been aimed at school cafeterias and food services across the country, and rightly so. But as a patient and caregiver who has seen many of this nation’s most prestigious healthcare centers, I promise the food offerings are at least as unhealthy as we might find in many of our schools. And I would argue it is an assault on any message those providers may offer about their desire to heal the human body when what is offered in their own facilities so clearly harms the bodies they claim to serve.
Once I mentioned this problem to my doctor and her staff after I had been an in-patient at a local, highly renowned hospital. I found it nearly impossible to get healthy food I could swallow after my surgery. Soft food offerings were processed and sugary puddings, salted broths and soups, sugary, colored gelatins – nothing on my tray resembled anything healthy. One young nurse finally brought me unsweetened applesauce, which became my diet for the rest of my stay. My doctor’s staff told me that they had already complained to the administration about the food service since they are often captive to what is offered when emergencies or long shifts make it impossible to break away and jaunt to some other place for healthy foods.
So, why shouldn’t we expect our healthcare institutions to support good health through nutrition? Are they making more money selling inexpensive offerings? Probably. Is it easier to store processed foods laden with preservatives? Sure. But none of that seems reason enough for me to have the places where doctors who take an oath to “do no harm” allow the foods served to do just that. It’s wrong. 
Our healthcare facilities should only offer healthy foods. If there are those patients or visitors who for some reason require a slice of pizza or a hamburger, on those rare occasions the hospital’s food service director could make special accommodations for that. It shouldn’t be so hard for a healthy diet to be accommodated – like it was for me during my recent hospital stay. It also made me wonder where else the provider was willing to cut corners on my health.
My husband’s grandmother used to tell me, “You can choose to put money in the grocery cart or you can pay the doctor.” She told me that when my kids were very young. I fed my family as well as I could, and aside from colds and an occasional flu bug, my kids were remarkably healthy with strong teeth and very few hospitalizations over the 25 years I was raising them. I slipped into some bad patterns myself when I would eat fast foods or junk foods, and my health suffered whenever I did.
So, what to do? I plan to speak up about the inconsistency that is so plain to me in the messages offered by our medical-industrial complex. Our healthcare facilities and providers are contributing to our epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. They are more than complicit; they are active participants in the horrendous cycle. Healthful foods – whether on the patient trays or in the cafeterias – should be the rule. The health providers should set the example by which we will live not serve the foods by which we will die. Rise up.
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41 Comments so far
Show AllThe food isn't the profit they are looking for, its the contributing to the soon to be, future, and current overweight and obese customers they are looking to obtain for the central business of the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies - making profits off of unhealthy individuals
Well, late to the party but welcome nonetheless. Now, Donna, go further and see through all the phony "treatments" that deny the reality of healing. and then fight for natural medicine the way you fight for the subsidy of a medical monopoly.
I agree so much, I am retired, my wife retired this year, I was covered with health insurance under her employer until she retired, now I am covered by Medicare, she worked until I was covered. We pay nearly 600 a month to cover her. A few years ago my doctor put me on Lipitor, I had an awful reaction to the Lipitor and it left me partially crippled. I started going to a natural path doctor with great success, now I have found that Medicare does not recognize natural medicine. I will have to just pay for it out of pocket, I don't mind so much my natural doctor is worth it. My retirement is taxed, so I pay to subsidize Pfizer, the people who tried to kill me for profit. I am pissed it America. We need single-payer, and we need to recognize natural medicine, not just pharmaceutical salesmen.
The anti cholesterol drugs are a scam. Even the ads will state that lowering your cholesterol will not lower you chance of having a heart attack.
They take vital enzymes out of your kidneys and liver. Why do you think there are so many muscle aches?
I think most of the new drugs and new diseases are just made up.
ADD, ADHD, depression. If your first antidepressant doesn't quite work, why not add an antipsychotic to your regime? Did you know you were psychotic in the first place?
Now if you have joint pain, they will recommend those drugs for you to take.
No mention of the amount of deaths because of prescription medications each year.
Good for you for going natural. And of course the insurance won't pay for it. They want you on the deadly drugs. Same as not paying for talk therapy. Why pay thousands to really get cured, when you can just get drugged, but still have the problem?
ps. I see comments on the Cheney thread are not open.
Censorship? Yep, I believe so.
Maybe CD is protecting us from ourselves, we all know that ass hole bought his way to the front of the waiting list, we all know he doesn't deserve the heart, he will be a heartless bastard for eternity.
Excellent diary on KOS today but has been removed.
www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/25/1077626/-A-Prayer-for-Dick-Cheney
Diarist is happy that he is in so much pain from the surgery.
No other site is censoring comments.
Well, maybe huffpuff because they are all get well soons.
I do hope he recovers, he hasn't had to answer to the Hague's warrant for crimes against humanity yet.
I once read a book about the heart having a brain, and that it controls the one in our head, perhaps we will see a profound change in Dick Cheney.
Dick? Dah!
Big Dick has no heart.
The anti-cholesterol drugs are not ENTIRELY a scam. The beneficial effects are exaggerated, the negative effects downplayed. But, that does not mean that they are entirely useless. Muscle damage, to the point of possible fatality, is one of the more prominent negative effects. Lowering vLDL cholesterol DOES have beneficial health effects. Statins tend to be a brute force approach to lowering vLDL cholesterol.
As for "really getting cured":
1. Many of the health problems that cannot get really cured, are affected by lifestyle.
2. It is the nature of life for us to die. Getting old has effects on many of the "lifestyle" health problems.
As for talking theraphy, given that it tends to be cheaper than drugs, it should be more popular among insurers, no? And talking therapy is hardly any kind of magical solution, despite all the hype it gets nowadays.
As for "made up" diseases, if you think that depression is "made up", then ignore it for yourself.
"No mention of the amount of deaths because of prescription medications each year"
Since you want a mention of the amount of deaths, maybe you should propose how to measure this to your satisfaction, accounting for all the various reasons that people get sick and die. Go on. Make a suggestion.
I don't believe that single payer and natural medicine can exist side by side. With the Medical Monopoly in place they will simply shut it down.
Sysco provides the "food" for hospitals offering things like pseudo-chicken breasts shipped from hundreds of miles away. First, scientists get rich making you sick, then doctors get rich curing your sickness. Many years from now the food will be worse and the sickness will be stronger, after all, if it looks, like chicken, smells like chicken and taste like chicken you can sure be glad you didn't step in it.
Great article, Donna. I had one child in a hospital before I trusted natural child-birth enough to stay at home with the second. In any case, when I told the staff that I was a vegetarian, they served me EGGS at every meal. There was no concept of a vegetarian diet!
The reason hospitals serve the crap is that they have contracts with "industrial food providers." Our entire nation has moved towards a one-size-fits all, factory model that influences science, medicine, law, and industry. The premise of healing is not really part of the equation. Very little in the USA today is healthy. Most things taken into the body as "food," or into the mind as "food for thought" are tainted in all things unnatural. We're seeing the "triumph" of the artificial over the real, the MANmade over the natural!
BTW: I have a male friend who eats often at McDonalds. He tried to tell me how fresh the food is there... to this dunce, the concept of pre-packaged/pre-fab is unknown to his cognitive lexicon. He was hospitalized 2 years ago and I saw what they served on his food tray. Fake jello, fake juice, dry packaged mashed potatoes, and some sliver of meat.... and when I remarked about how sad the nutritional fare was, he argued back that "the food was great!"
To generations raised almost exclusively on fast "food" along with its industrial equivalent, there is no idea of what anything natural means! To this generation, there will be no sense of loss for what was never real to them in the first place. Like virtual reality in the place of a living earth...
The heavens rain tears.
A number of studes has shown that with rats and other animals, when one puts said creature in an unhealthy population it starts to get ill as well. They have shown that if you remove ill rats from a population of other ill rats and put it in one of all healthy ones it regains its health.
This would suggest the adage my father kept insisting on wherein he would never go to a hospital because it would make him sick is correct.
So it not just the food we put in our bodies that make us ill.
Whenever doctors go on strike, the death rate plummets. No wonder, when the Journal of American Medicine estimates that 106,000 people die each year from adverse effects of prescription medicines.
According to another AMA publication, drug related "problems" kill as many as 198,815 people, put 8.8 million in hospitals, and account for up to 28% of hospital admissions.
According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, a well known proponent of natural medicine, "If these figures are accurate, only cancer and heart disease kill more patients than drugs."
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/15/recreational-drugs-far-less-likely-to-kill-you-than-prescribed-drugs.aspx
American doctors practice allopathic medicine, meaning the "treat" diseases after they occur, rather than preventing from occurring. Our entire culture works on allopathic principles in every thing we do -- pollute the environment and then remediate, create conditions of poverty and violence and then "cure" it with police and judicial violence.
Good points, GW North & Tom Carberry. The statistics you offered remind me of something I learned in my first psychology course at university. The smug, arrogant prof walked in and put 3 numbers on the chalk board. The highest represented the number of persons who got well without ANY psychological treatment. The 2nd highest figure represented the percentage that gets well with the help of a psychologist, and the last figure, and smallest of the lot, represented the percentage that regains its mental health via the assistance of a psychiatrist.
Noting those statistical numbers added to the types of persons I encountered in a number of psychology classes, I changed my major.
You've got a point, but the problem is this:
Let's say person A has high BP. High blood triglycerides. Low HDL cholesterol. High vLDL cholesterol. Also high serum glycated haemoglobin levels. Person A leads a sedentary lifestyle, office job sitting on ass in a chair, car as transport everywhere, little leisure physical activity. Eats a diet high in breads, rice pasta, candies, chips / nachos, fairly high in red meats, very little vegetables, washed down by sugary drinks.
Prevention would mean drastically altering diet and physical activity levels. Now assuming that a doctors makes the correct suggestions with regards to physical activity and diet (not always a correct assumption, many doctors are little qualified to make such suggestions), is Person A going to follow those suggestions?
Pretty much any definition of VEGETARIAN includes eggs and dairy. It is VEGANS who exclude eggs and dairy. So, hardly the fault of the hospital staff for serving you eggs. If you didn't want eggs, you should have made it clear to them that you didn't want eggs.
Of course Granny Smith would promote this point of view.
:-)
Donna,
As a healthcare nutrition professional working in an acute care hospital, I want to thank you for pointing out these inconsistencies. If more of our patients had the same level of awareness and ownership of their personal nutrition habits and choices as you, it would make our job of providing a healthier bill of fare during their brief stays with us that much easier. Sadly, poor nutrition habits are epidemic in our nation for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is a culture where food manufacturers shamelessly market and engineer high profit, low nutrient value/low nutrient dense foods that appeal to palates that have been cultivated to the "pleasures" of high levels of salt, sweet & fat. Attempts to change these ingrained habits during the course of a short hospital stay are often fraught with demands by our patients for their physicians to liberalize diet orders that will permit them to consume foods like pizza, doughnuts & french fries. Incredibly enough, even for those individuals who suffer from obesity and its related chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., attempts to help curb and/or change poor lifestyle habits can be frustrating.
Yes, we should set a better example, as you point out, in a healthcare setting. Beyond that, we need an entire shift in how we not only deliver healthcare (single payer - YES!), but in how we manage our own personal health. Prevention that includes community education involving families and their children would be a great start along with our own government ceasing the practice of subsidizing unhealthy commodities that find their way into the diet of the average American and instead place emphasis on cultivating and encouraging a food supply chain that is local, sustainable and minimally processed.
candrew57--Thirty years ago I, too, worked as a nutrition professional in an acute care hospital and I'm here to tell you nothing has changed in all that time except that the 400 bed facility I worked in actually served healthful food in their cafeteria, despite what went out on the trayline. But when patients asked for different food it was often for fries and burgers.
I fear that single payer will do nothing to change the monopoly and will enhance their efforts to destroy natural/nutritional medicine which is the only way to truly reduce costs. Yes, people have to take personal responsiblity whereever they can, but unless that also involves seeking alternatives (and paying cash for care) the system will not be broken. The alternative medicine MD's are often fighting a losing battle with local medical societies. Both they and naturopaths have to be supported by those who can afford it.
Thank you for bringing up the paradox of serving up unhealthy food in a "health" care setting. I would first point out we really don't have a "health care" system - we have a disease management (and sometimes disease promotion) system. I wish we could begin to call it what it is . . . . sigh. Knowing that may help see the situation differently.
You make some valid points but, alas, continue to perpetuate much of the same harmful information. You ask "Why sell saturated fat?" I invite you to explore the wealth of research that now clearly demonstrates the health benefits of consuming saturated fat from healthy, properly raised animals. I suggest you become acquainted with the organization in your own state - The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation - and learn more about healthy fat.
I also would like to point out that apples top the Dirty Dozen list of the twelve foods with the highest pesticide residue. Eating all that unsweetened applesauce may not have been a very good choice afterall if made from conventionally grown apples.
"Healthful foods – whether on the patient trays or in the cafeterias – should be the rule." So right! But let's try as hard as we can to agree on what is truly "healthful" and stop the message that "saturated fat is bad fat" and apples are apples. We need a clear, consistent and accurate message.
i'm dealing with some kind of intestinal issue right now, and my doctors are quite literally disinterested in what i eat.
Not only are they themselves not inquiring about my diet habits and food choices, they ignore me when i bring it up. When i suggested i might try eliminating some kinds of food and see what happens, they saw no reason to try anything. They have made zero recommendations about diet.
On my own i am working out some correlations between foods i eat and reactions.
And this is at Group Health Cooperative, the original organization supposedly dedicated to preventive medicine and health maintenance. There are some good programs at Group Health but most of their doctors ignore some of the most basic tools they have to assess and address their patients' health.
Although this may have changed (?) in recent years, Dr. Andrew Weil pointed out that doctors are NOT required to study nutrition! You instead get the lobbyists for the American Dairy Association working to keep that chart posted in classrooms that tells kids they need 4 glasses of cow milk every day, and lots of dairy products to stay healthy. So much BS passes for the truth due to the way our media pushes messages amenable to their sponsors' profit-based needs.
Not that long ago Nestle ran an ad campaign aimed at impoverished Africa. It utilized billboards to tell mothers that their breast milk was not as rich or healthy as the formulas Nestle was trying to sell. People who rely on artificial infant formulas must heat them and sterilize bottles. Those options hardly exist for peole living far from electricity or potable water supplies. When babies began to die, a massive boycott had Nestle stop its advertising cum propaganda campaign ruthlessly aimed at vulnerable, uneducated young mothers.
We live in a society absolutely SATURATED with lies... and so few even know what's true any more. When I meet people who think "fresh" = fake fast "food," it really shows how far The Programming has gone!
"We live in a society absolutely SATURATED with lies..."
Indeed, this web of deceit has evolved by design, so the people with power can exert ever increasing control over the powerless.
Yes saturated with lies is much worse than saturated fat, unless it comes from CAFO animals, in which case there are worse things to worry about.
Sioux Rose earlier referred to contracts between hospitals and industrial food suppliers. Let's take that a step further and note that in some hospitals, the cafeteria and the kitchen may be subcontracted out in order to save money. In that case, the hospital has no input.
The contract may have vague terms about healthy food, but the contractor makes the decisions. And the hospital's management usually consists of "bean counters," not anyone who knows or cares about nutrition, so as long as the organization (even a so-called "non-profit" one) is making money, no one cares.
No argument from me on the details you offered. The sad thing is very few people even know what healthy food is! For my friend to think he got GOOD hospital food or consider that McDonald's food is "fresh" is the dietary equivalent of claims made by Big Waste that its product is perfectly organic! We're back to "depends what is is" in these Orwellian times.
One thing we are working on in Washington (state) that is being done elsewhere as well is getting standards in place for institutional food: local sourcing, fresh ingredients, no junk, etc.
The "farm-to-schools" program is one, but also working to get medical facilities to require actual food be served. The Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network has done a lot of this work, there are probably similar organizations in many states.
This can be done at the individual institutional level, but more productive to get statewide commitments to not offer junk food, to make food from fresh ingredients, etc.
A similar conflict between profit and health can be found in supermarkets wherein so much of the food is contrary to good health and wherein an in-store pharmacy is selling pharmaceuticals for treating chronic illnesses to which those foods contribute.
Thank you Donna. An apple a day does cut profitz, cuts the GDP, cuts the empire tentacles, cuts elite theft of the people's treasures, the people's energy, vision, creativity, ethics, will and perseverance, heart and soul. An apple a day is one of those good things, along with all good things the people are learning to recognize and sort out from the bad things, and keep separate, so the people can put their full weight behind what is good, without liberal confusion, hesitation, paralysis, but with the people's courage, confidence and collective power, earth-sized, dwarfing the elite enterprise like the earth dwarfs their stupid "aircraft carriers" and "skyscrapers". What is good is good and altogether the Great Good, never to be split, separated, diluted or confused again. The people can have it all. Sorry, liberals! In truth, this does not work well for you, we all know!
Once again hideous monster of corporate influence puts profits above human life by being certain that unhealthy food from the major food industries are force-fed to the sick and dying suffering in our corporate hospitals. "They" are also poisoning children in our schools, elders in nursing homes and millions of Americans seduced by junk food advertising or following what they have been conditioned to accept as a healthy diet. Etc.
Nearly all hospital menus are prepared by dietitians certified by the American Dietetics Association. The A.D.A. is almost as corrupt as the U.S.D.A. when it comes to promoting healthy food. The bottom line is profit for the corporations that produce unhealthy American food and influence the mainstream "health" industry. This is the corporate industrial health care complex in action, responsible for more deaths than the MIC !
Doctors, who have never studied nutrition, and are certainly not aware of progressive nutrition, are also influenced by the A.D.A.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/internal-documents-reveal-usda-dietary-guidelines-influenced-by-big-pharma-and-industrial-food-companies/
Internal Documents Reveal USDA Dietary Guidelines Influenced by Big Pharma and Industrial Food Companies
"Under pressure from the Healthy Nation Coalition, the USDA revealed identities of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines “Independent Scientific Review Panel,” credited with peer-reviewing the Guidelines for scientific accuracy. Seven of eight panel members are Registered Dietitians (RDs). At the same time, RDs across America are reeling from the news that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) won’t reimburse them to provide counseling for obesity. This news comes as the American Dietetic Association (ADA)—the professional organization for RDs—is under scrutiny for ties to food and pharmaceutical industries."
Like Siouxrose, I found myself in a typical hospital recovering, in my case from a very complicated near death surgery and every meal plate was full of dairy, questionable meats, white flour products and of course a sugar desert. After reviewing the options I requested oatmeal, whole wheat toast, mashed potatoes and fresh fruit. After a one day hunger strike they complied.
The DVD, Forks Over Knives, exposes many of myths of the American diet and how what have been thought to be healthy foods are contributing to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other afflictions.
And currently the A.D.A. is seeking to expand their power and influence with legislation promoted across the country.
http://www.anh-usa.org/american-dietetic-association-monopoly/
The American Dietetic Association’s Monopoly Continues to Grow—But You Can Stop It Cold! January 3, 2012
"The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has sponsored legislation in over 40 states. These bills lump dietitians and nutritionists into one licensing scheme, and require nutritionists to complete a dietitian program in order to practice nutritional therapy. Even if the nutritionist holds a Masters or a PhD in nutrition, the nutritionist is still required to complete registration through ADA in order to keep practicing. This is the organization that lists among its corporate sponsors soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, cereal manufacturers General Mills and Kellogg’s, candy maker Mars, and Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns many of the world’s consumer products brands in foods and beverages."
double post
Membership in the ADA is not required to be a registered dietitian. For years, RDs with a conscience have been cancelling ADA membership in droves and it is now acting like any good bureaucracy, it is trying to save itself from freedom of choice.
I've been writing about the dangers of the medical monopoly on this site for at least 4 years. I hope people are starting to wake up. Your link to the Alliance for Natural Health (anh-usa.org) is a great place for people to get/keep informed.
WHY? Maybe because doctors and other "health care providers" are too chicken to actually speak up? 'Spose that has something to do with it? Why are you writing a column, rather than gathering your peers and FORCING the issue?
I have yet to see a protest by "health care providers" at a hospital cafeteria!
And along those lines, you do realize that the food given out at food banks around the country are mostly the same crap you are describing, right? Try looking at what is served at a homeless shelter some time.
How about speaking up on behalf of poor people getting unhealthy food at these charities, rather than blaming poor people for not eating properly?
Would that be too much to ask?
You should not generalize about nurses--many earn very comfortable salaries and many also fight any attempts to promote natural medicine. Yes, and many are dedicated professionals.
The truly exploited group is anyone treated by mainstream medicine or who contributes to insurance, and gov't health programs via taxes. The fruits of our labor are taken not so people can get well but so highly paid medical personnel (which includes Big Pharma and medical supplies) can maintain lifestyles comparable to those long gone plantation owners.
This was a reply to a comment that has disappeared. It referred to nurses as exploited for their labor, using other language which is probably the reason for deletion, and I responded because stereotyping doesn't work for problem identification/solving.
And one quick way to get the attention of those feeding you unhealthy food while trapped in a corporate industrial hospital is to accidentally spill something like a huge cut of greasy meatloaf smothered in gravy all over the floor.
I wonder if the hospitals have banned pink slime hamburger yet ?
The general hospital where many of my clients had to go served the same food that was served in Jail. Much of the food service is contracted and it is really pitfull. I do remember when it was good though.