Hospitals are supposed to help people recover. A multidisciplinary team in the Netherlands has developed 30 fully plant-derived hospital meals, combining them into 7 complete daily menus designed around the unusually demanding nutritional needs of hospital patients.
Not salads and side dishes.
The menus include overnight oats, hazelnut pancakes, chickpea sandwiches, vegetable quiche, lentil risotto, chickpea curry, soy-based desserts and carrot banana cake. Across the week, they provide 90 to 97 grams of protein per day.
Every meal also met the researchers’ threshold for protein quality, with all essential amino acid scores above the adult reference pattern.
And the price?
Between €10.50 and €12.30 per patient per day. The researchers found the menus could remain within hospital food budgets, with plant protein sources generally costing less than animal-derived alternatives.
There are caveats.
None of the 7 menus met the recommended calcium intake, and only one reached the target for vitamin B12. The researchers say fortified foods or supplementation may therefore be necessary. The inclusion of oat milk or a soya yogurt could make the difference.
They also did not test the meals on patients. Taste testing was carried out by the expert team, so real-world patient acceptance and actual food intake remain unknown.
Those are problems to solve. They are not evidence that hospitals need animals on the menu. In fact, the study demonstrates something much more useful: clinicians, dietitians and chefs can deliberately design plant-based hospital food around protein, amino acids, portion size, taste and cost.
The researchers frame this as a way for hospitals to adjust the ratio between animal and plant protein.
We ask if we can feed patients without using animals, why are animals still being treated as ingredients in the first place?
We created a petition calling on British hospitals to remove processed meat from patient menus.
This is great news