{"id":3786,"date":"2016-02-03T12:20:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T17:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=3786"},"modified":"2021-02-17T11:35:40","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T16:35:40","slug":"more-healthy-options-less-junk-food-at-the-ottawa-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/more-healthy-options-less-junk-food-at-the-ottawa-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"More healthy options, less junk food at The Ottawa Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Food Services staff Sarah Linder (left) and Somphone Souksanh demonstrate how once-fried items like French fries and chicken fingers will now be baked.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re at The Ottawa Hospital and go looking for a snack between treatments or while visiting a loved one, you may notice some changes: fewer chips and chocolate bars, more healthy options, and the deep fryer at the General Campus is gone.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because all 20 hospitals in the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) have agreed to work together through the Healthy Food in Hospitals Initiative to offer healthier meal choices.<\/p>\n

Hospitals are changing what they serve to staff, visitors and patients in their cafeterias, gift shops, vending machines and franchise operations. The goal is to make it easy to choose interesting, tasty, healthy foods and reduce rates of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, stroke and cancer.<\/p>\n

Although removing the deep fryer might come as a major change at the General Campus, the Civic Campus hasn\u2019t had one in four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it will take time to adjust to the change, but we also know people are looking for healthier options,\u201d said Cafeteria Manager Guy Girard. \u201cPart of our strategy is to support healthier populations and this initiative does that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"healthy-foods-guy-girard\"<\/p>\n

The Ottawa Hospital is part of a Champlain-wide effort to improve healthy meal choices in hospitals, said Cafeteria Manager Guy Girard.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hospitals in the region can achieve bronze, silver or gold status, with increasing requirements for healthy options and restrictions on junk food at each level. The Ottawa Hospital was to reach the bronze status in January, which means offering smaller soft drink, chocolate milk and juice sizes and more whole-grain products.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team has been sourcing new products that fit the guidelines and testing new preparation methods \u2013 for example, chicken fingers or fish that taste great baked,\u201d said Girard.<\/p>\n

Franchises within the hospital will also make changes to offer healthier menus. Volunteer-run convenience stores at The Ottawa Hospital, for example, now offer soups and sandwiches in the evenings so that staff or visitors have access to healthy meals after the cafeterias close. Tim Hortons franchises are working with hospitals across the LHIN to tailor their menus to the initiative.<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u2019s about giving people options, not forcing them to eat any particular food, said Girard. \u201cWe want to offer people a balance. We\u2019ll still have French fries \u2013 but now, they\u2019ll be baked instead of fried.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Food Services staff Sarah Linder (left) and Somphone Souksanh demonstrate how once-fried items like French fries and chicken fingers will now be baked. If you\u2019re at The Ottawa Hospital and go looking for a snack between treatments or while visiting a loved one, you may notice some changes: fewer chips and chocolate bars, more healthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}