If you lived in Macon, Georgia, and were lucky enough to survive a heart attack, you’d probably end up in the Acute Recovery Unit of the Atrium Health Navicent Heart and Vascular Program. It’s “a national leader in state-of-the-art cardiovascular care,” according to their website, offering “prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiac disease.” Their board-certified cardiologists “are committed to providing the best possible care.”
And to celebrate your good fortune as you rehabilitated, your visiting family members could stop by the on-site hospital restaurant and bring you a couple of meals. You could treat your recovering heart muscle and arteries to a Bacon, Egg, & Cheese McGriddle for breakfast; a Big Mac, large fries, and Coke for lunch; and Chicken McNuggets and a chocolate shake for dinner. That’s right — for years, a McDonald’s was renting space inside this medical center.
That was the reality at Atrium Health Navicent until June 2019, when a long campaign by the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) finally bore fruit, convincing the medical center’s leaders not to renew the fast-food chain’s lease.
There are many morals to this story.
The first is that it’s a win worth celebrating. Three cheers to American College of Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer Award Winner Neal Barnard, MD, and the rest of the PCRM team for their persistence and political savvy. And hats off to the courage of the Atrium Health Navicent board of directors for cutting off a lucrative revenue stream in favor of patient health.
The second moral is to spare a thought for the often economically stressed patients, visitors, and staff who had come to rely on McDonald’s as a tasty, cheap, and convenient source of calories. Where could they eat cheaply and quickly now?
A third moral is, to put it bluntly, what was a McDonald’s doing in a medical center in the first place?
Can you imagine a liquor store housed in an alcohol abuse rehab center? A demolition derby track as part of an auto body shop? A gun shop located on the grounds of a trauma center?
The Irony of Fast Food in a Hospital
If you stop and think about it for even two seconds, you’ll see that these analogies are spot-on. The food served at McDonald’s, beyond a shadow of a doubt, causes the diseases and conditions that the Atrium Health Navicent Heart and Vascular Program is treating.
Yes, it’s comfort food at a tough time. But there’s no comfort in a second heart attack. No comfort in a continual downward spiral of health and vitality. No comfort in more and more time, money, and energy devoted to managing a slow decline into disability and premature death.
If you wanted to be really cynical about it, you could see the two branches of the operation as feeding each other. The hospital provided customers for McDonald’s, and McDonald’s, in turn, provided more customers for the hospital.
Of course, no cardiologist wants to see more heart disease. No hospital is rooting for the rising incidence of angina, myocardial infarction, a-fib, stroke, and congestive heart failure. It wasn’t a conscious conspiracy. The Atrium Health Navicent McDonald’s — and the dozens of other fast-food restaurants that still operate inside medical centers across the country — are symptoms of a profound blind spot in medical practice and education.
The blind spot, so obvious to those of us outside the profession, is that the food we eat is the number one determinant of human health.
Diet Is the Leading Cause of Preventable Death
A 2019 report published in The Lancet affirms that poor diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risk factor. How many deaths? In 2017 alone, unhealthy diets killed around 11 million adults worldwide, through heart disease, several cancers, type 2 diabetes, and other illnesses. The leading risk factors were high salt intake, low whole grain intake, and low fruit intake.
Not that this is cutting-edge knowledge. Humans have known that food affects health long before epidemiological research, or science, or — most probably — language itself.
The Disappearance of Food as Medicine
Humans didn’t need peer-reviewed studies to sense that food and health were connected — that intuition predates written history. But it took modern science, especially over the past several decades, to move that intuition from folk wisdom to documented mechanism.
My late father, John Robbins, put it simply: “A doctor who doesn’t know about food is like a firefighter who doesn’t know about water.” That was true when he said it. It remains true today. Most doctors still graduate from medical school with little or no training in the foundation of health.
Medical education has long focused on pathology and treatment — what goes wrong with the human body, and the interventions research has produced to address it. Pills, procedures, and protocols.
What’s been missing, of course, is human health before disease or injury. What keeps us well? What can return us to health? Medical education has largely ignored these questions, and so medical practice has pretended they’re irrelevant to its mission.
Meanwhile, healthcare leadership built a system in which fast food could colonize medical centers and shuttle customers onto a conveyor belt of chronic disease.
A Disconnect Between Symptoms and Cause
The modern disease epidemic has hit us faster than anyone might have imagined. It’s been more than 4 decades since we had the first signs that type 2 diabetes, known then as “adult-onset diabetes,” was affecting youth. Between 2001 and 2017, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes among U.S. adolescents ages 10 to 19 rose from 0.34 to 0.67 cases per 1,000 youth — a 95% increase, according to the CDC-funded SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study, the largest population-based surveillance project tracking pediatric diabetes in the U.S. Over roughly the same period, the annual rate of new type 2 diagnoses in youth climbed by about 4.8% a year — nearly three times the growth rate of new type 1 diagnoses. By 2017–2018, type 2 diabetes was being newly diagnosed in adolescents at a rate of nearly 18 per 100,000 each year, closing in on the rate for type 1 diabetes at about 22 per 100,000 — a gap that would have seemed unthinkable a generation ago, when type 2 diabetes in children was rarely diagnosed at all.
If there were a vaccine that protected against type 2 diabetes, public health authorities would recommend it for every child in the United States. But because the disease is foodborne, vectored by Big Macs, Whoppers, and Baconators, we’ve acted as if prevention were impossible. That abdication of medical responsibility has sentenced our young people to shortened lives full of avoidable pain and suffering.
We’ve graduated healthcare providers with a gap at the foundation of their education. We’ve built an acute care system to handle the flood of after-effects, and forgotten that we had the means to turn off the faucet. The result, decade after decade, has been epidemic obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression, and cancer, in a culture that fosters the continuation of our poor habits. And every year that we’ve waited, the costs — measured in lives, dollars, and human suffering — have compounded.
Meanwhile, patients whose lives are on the line are told nothing about nutrition by doctors who, despite all their best intentions, were never taught it.
Leading the Charge for Nutrition in Medical Education
The movement that finally got McDonald’s out of Macon’s Atrium Health Navicent campus is still fighting to remove unhealthy food from health care facilities. A 2024 survey by PCRM found that nearly 70% of U.S. medical school hospitals still host a fast-food restaurant on-site.
At the same time, we’ve opened a new front: pushing to get nutrition taught in medical schools themselves.
Some of this work happens one lecture hall at a time. My dear friend Michael Klaper, MD, spent a long career in clinical practice before concluding that the hardest problem wasn’t what he could do for the patient in front of him. It was what he had never been taught to do in the first place. He now brings that reckoning straight to medical students, traveling to schools across North America and internationally to teach how a patient’s diet can either cause disease or reverse it. His initiative, Moving Medicine Forward, backs those visits with Nutrition Interest Groups on campus, toolkits for student leaders, and a CME-accredited masterclass in plant-based clinical nutrition built in partnership with the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute. His book, Moving Medicine Forward, traces his own path from country GP to advocate for reversing chronic disease through plant-strong nutrition. Neal Barnard has called it vitally important and overdue. I agree, and I’d add that it’s the book I wish every physician graduating this year would read.
One key lever is medical education. Like most academic institutions, medical schools teach to the test. So here’s a question: Out of the thousands of questions on the certification exam for physicians, how many were about nutrition? For years, the answer was: almost none.
And if you’re a medical school recruiting the best students, how much energy will you put into teaching a topic that doesn’t show up on the exam that determines your graduates’ careers? Right again: almost none.
Recognizing this, Food Revolution Network partnered with Bright Line Eating and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine in 2019 to fund the Lifestyle Medicine Question Bank. The campaign set out to raise $250,000 to fund 1,000 multiple-choice questions designed for use on categorical assessment tests and licensing exams — the goal being to motivate medical schools to include lifestyle medicine subjects in their curricula, and to eventually get some of these questions folded into official testing. The campaign hit its funding goal on December 22, 2019, and ACLM faculty now use the resulting question bank to teach and test medical students on lifestyle medicine. That kind of grassroots pressure, alongside years of advocacy from clinicians and researchers, has helped keep nutrition on the table as institutions like the National Board of Medical Examiners have moved to expand nutrition-focused content across all three U.S. medical licensing exams, with nutrition performance now appearing in score reporting.
The underlying principle is straightforward: What gets tested gets taught. If nutrition and lifestyle medicine are meaningfully represented on high-stakes exams, educators will be far more likely to prioritize them in the curriculum. These efforts represent important progress. These are steps on a long path, but at least we appear to be moving in the right direction.
A Turning Point: 40 Hours, Finally
Then, in March of 2026, something shifted, and I was in the room when it happened.
For years, advocates had been reciting the same dismal baseline to anyone who would listen: Only 14% of U.S. residency programs had a required nutrition curriculum. Three-quarters of U.S. medical schools had no required clinical nutrition classes. Medical students reported an average of 1.2 hours of formal nutrition education per year, less than the time most of them spend in a single pharmacology lecture.
In 2025, HHS issued a public call for medical schools to change this, and in March 2026, HHS and the U.S. Department of Education announced that 53 of the nation’s medical schools, across 31 states, had committed to require at least 40 hours of nutrition education — or a 40-hour competency equivalent — beginning in fall 2026. That number has kept growing: by June 2026, 19 more schools signed on, bringing the total to 73, and more may have joined since.
I watched HHS Secretary Kennedy, Education Secretary McMahon, CMS Administrator Dr. Oz, and AMA President Dr. Mukkamala take the stage together to mark the occasion. That lineup represented federal health policy, federal education policy, Medicare and Medicaid, and organized medicine. Whatever you think of any one of them, seeing those voices united around a single message was something I hadn’t seen before: Nutrition belongs at the center of medicine.
AMA President Bobby Mukkamala didn’t cite his own credentials as expertise — he offered them as an admission of a gap. After 25 years in practice, he recently earned board certification in Lifestyle Medicine specifically because he felt his own medical training had left him without enough grounding in how food and daily habits affect disease. As he put it: “For too long, nutrition has been treated as an elective in medical education — a few hours here and there. Considering how important what we eat is for our health, it should be a basic foundational training.“
He’s right. And on that day, at least, the people with the power to act agreed.
Now, more than 30,000 physicians will graduate each year with at least a foundational understanding of nutrition — and that number will only grow as more schools sign on beyond the original cohort.. These are doctors who will spend decades in practice, each one having tens of thousands of conversations with patients about their health.
This is a genuine breakthrough. It’s also, to be clear, a set of voluntary commitments from roughly a third of U.S. medical schools. Getting nutrition into some curricula is not the same as getting it onto licensing exams, into residency training, or into the daily habits of the millions of physicians already in practice. We still need mandatory continuing medical education on nutrition, so that doctors who graduated without this knowledge can fill in the gaps. And we need the remaining two-thirds of medical schools to follow.
But the movement that clinicians, researchers, and advocates have been building for decades, from Michael Greger to Neal Barnard to Senator Cory Booker to thousands of unnamed patients and practitioners, is finally reaching institutional weight. The Question Bank, the 40-hour commitments, the eviction of McDonald’s from hospital lobbies: These are all part of the same story.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Sometimes that arc feels very long indeed.
But one thing is clear: It won’t bend all by itself. We all have a part to play.
What Comes Next
It’s tempting to read a headline like “53 medical schools commit to 40 hours of nutrition” and feel like the work is done. It isn’t. The children being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes today won’t benefit from a curriculum reform that reaches them in their 40s. The patients in cardiac wards this year deserve doctors who already know what to tell them about food.
The work ahead is to translate institutional commitments into practitioner habits — classroom hours into residency training, residency training into hospital protocols, and hospital protocols into the conversations that doctors actually have with patients. That last mile — the exam room conversation, the discharge instructions, the follow-up call — is where decades of advocacy will either land or fail to land.
This is one of the most consequential public health opportunities of our generation. Hundreds of millions of people stand to live longer, better lives if we get this right. And whether we get it right doesn’t depend only on what medical schools, regulators, and advocacy groups do next. It depends, in large part, on the choices each of us makes — about what we eat, what we ask of our doctors, what we expect from our hospitals, and what we’re willing to push for in the systems that shape all of our lives.
How You Can Take Action
Here are three ways you can add your weight to the movement to put food back at the center of medicine:
- Eat like food matters. The most direct way to shift the food-as-medicine landscape is to live it. Lean into more whole, plant-based foods. There are abundant resources right here on this site to help you make that shift, one meal at a time.
- Bring food into the exam room. Ask your doctor how much nutrition training they received in medical school. Ask what role they think food plays in your specific health concerns. And if they seem interested in going deeper, let them know that lifestyle medicine offers excellent CME credits and even a board certification. These conversations, multiplied across millions of appointments, shape what physicians prioritize and what their hospitals and medical schools take seriously.
- Use your voice. Share articles like this one. Talk with friends, family, and colleagues about why nutrition belongs at the center of medicine. Support the organizations doing this work — including PCRM, ACLM, and Food Revolution Network — and make clear, with your time and your dollars, that this is the kind of healthcare you want.
Each of us has a choice. We can be passive patients or empowered participants in our own health and in the health of our communities. We can be complicit in the status quo, or we can be everyday revolutionaries.
And maybe one day soon, the most common order at the hospital restaurant will be kale salad with sweet potatoes and fresh fruit — with the same goal as the cardiologists down the hall.
Tell us in the comments:
- What is your experience with hospital food?
- Do you think medical education should focus more on nutrition and prevention?
Featured Image: iStock.com/AlessandroPhoto
What is McDonalds doing in a hospital? . Follow the money i say. On every large hospital there is a Ronald McDonald Centre for families to stay near the hospital where children need care. Connection?
While I think food is extremely important in health outcomes it is not the only thing that is a determinate. I think we must consider the role of vaccines in the childhood diabetes epidemic. There are so many forced upon our children that we must consider whether these play a major role in the whole disease debate.
This is important. I am malambo a medical student at the University of Zambia in Zambia Africa. I have created a lifestyle medicine interest group on my campus and I work with PCRM hosting plant based lunch and learn events and this year we even hosted their conference on nutrition in medicine streaming it live on campus before students and faculty members. We now look forward to host lifestyle medicine grand rounds, and weekly lifestyle medicine clinical skills classes to medical students, Our goal is to push lifestyle medicine and plant based nutrition into our medical school curriculum and in the life of every student on campus. Let’s all push we all have a role to play.
Thank you!
When my mom was in the hospital for colon surgery we were told she couldn’t leave the hospital until she had had her breakfast. Breakfast came with a large slab of ham, hash browns, fried eggs and fruit yogurt (high sugar). We received the breakfast, left it on the table and went home and I made my mom a simple bowl of oatmeal which she requested.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Mary! –Ina, Food Revolution Network Team
Wow this news is extremely impressive
Congratulations!
It has always surprised me at the disconnect between hospital food and health. Of all the places you would think it would matter, it seems to matter the least. As someone with celiac disease who eats a WFPB diet, you would think I was asking them to prepare some exotic, molecular gastronomy dish. I have had dietary department heads shrug and say “good luck” when they were unable to find appropriate things for me to eat (oh look, you have beans and rice! Yeah, but it has cheese in it which isn’t listed on the menu). I remember my dad being on a cardiac unit for observation, and he was having roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes and buttered corn for lunch. The whole plate was shades of beige. It was as if they were working on customer retention! Schools, hospitals, prisons – any institution charged with feeding people should have the ability and knowledge to provide healthful, appropriate food.
Yes, I do think that there should be more focus on nutrition and prevention in medical education. Especially prevention. It should be a foundation of medicine. The concept of using food as medicine should also be an integral part of medical education.
What a great article. Thank you for getting this out there. It shows that our medical profession it starting to recognize the value food and lifestyle has on our health, Halleluiah. As for the food in hospitals, I won’t eat it. On the rare occasions I have to spend time in a hospital, I get my wife to bring me food. As for medical schools, I have felt for a long time that they have been missing the boat on the benefits of nutrition in favour of pharmaceuticals. A fall out from letting the pharmaceutical companies of the medical boards that develop the curriculum.
Thanks Ocean… I hope this is just step one in a battle for legit healthy foods! I’d love to help! I don’t have riches but I wanna help spread the word, take the classes these Dr’s are taking/will be taking and take this message to the many folks suffering.
It’s all about greed w these restaurants. Where are the overwhelmingly legit healthy, successful restaurants? Or restaurants that give a true effort to serve healthy foods that support folks health instead of doing their part push folks to emergency rooms?
Why are there few/no folks evaluating and informing would be customers about the good the bad and the ugly in their menus? Not the polished PC menus. Where are the legit healthy foods for people like me that have clogged arteries and trying to make it past a heart attack a stroke and a dbl bypass? Like the hospital McDonalds, don’t these restaurants have any morals? Can’t they make money and pay their bills serving truly healthy food?
It’s not just about restaurants. As long as we keep paying them for their unhealthy foods, they will keep serving it up and filling their pockets. We have to do our part and not settle for unhealthy foods. Period.
It’s time for folks to stand up and hold these restaurants accountable. There’s room for McDonald’s and Taco Bell and folks trying to make it selling healthy foods.
It’s time for us to call out these unhealthy eateries, or at least focus on true attempts to offer legit, healthy foods at a fair price.
And we need to educate the restaurants that care to be part of the solution. We deserve healthy foods that help us and at a decent price, not a surcharge for doing the right thing.
How best can I get started???
Hospital food is a crime against humanity : ) Sorry, but it doesn’t help anyone heal. And the irony is that nurses and nutritionists at most hospitals actually think the food is praise worthy. It’s not. This indicates a lack of understanding and experience about what good nutritious food really IS. People who follow a mainstream American diet will think almost anything is great, but this is because our standards in the U.S. are so low. It’s time for the whole nation to experience decent, naturally grown food and meats, so they can start to discern junk from life sustaining food.
When my parents were in the hospital there were a few healthy choices, but they were so bland and flavorless. Not much for vegan and if you were there several days, you would have to eat the same thing over and over. Hospital kitchen staff will need to be taught how to make healthy food taste better….just a few herbs would help! The senior living facilities are terrible about healthy menu options as well. There really needs to be some attention in that direction as well.
I retired from teaching Family and Consumer Science in 2005. Our foods and nutrition class covered nutrition as well as food safety and preparation. Schools need this .
It’s so important to have this focus for our medical staff.
Thank you for the work yo do in encouraging better nutrition.
My ex internist diagnosed me with stage 3 kidney disease and told me there was nothing I could do, my kidneys would slowly fail and I would die. I went plant based, low protein and got my GFR from 46 to 71
Yikes! Sorry to hear this, Joy.
Same. My mom was just in the hospital and we requested vegetarian meals. Our options were like grilled cheese and fries. I had to suggest beans or cottage cheese and vegetables and fruit. It was sad.
My son with Stage 4 cancer was told by a health care provider at the V.A. to eat convenient deli meats for protein. How long have we known processed deli meats are carcinogenic?
Why not aim to get nutrition taught in all secondary schools, bypassing the need to teach people through their doctor? Go direct to the public, reaching the parents through the children. This way you get the message to the everyone in the future generations, including the next crop of doctors. It would be the fastest way to spread the information. After all, it’s information everyone citizen needs, not just people sick enough to see a doctor.
Check with your local Farmers Market. They are a wealth of information on local health and nutrition volunteer efforts and fundraising.
Awesome Article Thanks
Much needed Information
Lifestyle is a natural Way for Humans, not Animals and not Chemicals.
Yes! Finally doctors are paying attention to nutrition. Hopefully they will understand the body is a whole unit. There are consequences for every bit of advice, every symptom they ignore and every prescription they write without discussing underlying causes.
My husband had to spend one night in the hospital and he requested a vegan meal. What he got was a big piece of stinky fish.
Yeees medical education should focus more on nutrition and prevention 💯%
Thoughtful, Historical Presentation of Food as a Medicine (plant based).
Well done. My Hats off to Food Revolution & All Other Organisations & Peoples.
Current Allopathy System based on Disease Management Model MUST change for the Benefit of Humanity & All Living Beings & Mother Earth.
Yes, definitely medical education should focus on nutrition for better health and prevention! Many Drs. are quite happy to prescribe pain killers & other pharmacy drugs for health problems. My Dr. some years ago wanted to put me on a drug to lower my cholesterol and I said, No. I went plant based & lowered it myself. My Dr. was in shock and asked, how did you do that. I told her, and she looked at me in shock & disbelief! Nutrition is needed in schools, the idea of giving “candy treats” to kids is bad as sugar is addictive and drugs for pain, etc. is teaching children the wrong message! I must admit, I have slowly been eating meat again, but always incorporate legumes, fruits, veggies into my meals as well.
Ocean,we are so blessed because of what you do.
ABSOLUTELY medical education should focus more on nutrition and prevention. Wouldn’t it be amazing if our schools would offer cooking classes that focus on how to shop and cook plant based meals that taste amazing. I had cooking class as an elective in high school and it was fun and very valuable.
All I can say, Ocean, is thanks be to GOD!!!
I remember when I asked my Oncologist ten years ago if it mattered to my genetic blood cancer if I ate sugar and he adamantly said no. Every time I go to his clinic my numbers are either good if I haven’t been eating sugary foods or bad because I have. Ocean, I think what you have accomplished is amazing.
read again. he’s in there, there’s an entire paragraph about dr klaper and his work.
Just walk around any hospital….and discover who is The healthiest…Just Observe Zero -Comment…. Obese Staffing and you are right on track…Including the Medical Doctors Where overweight Essence is to Be noted!
I was in the hospital and they said that I had to have something like Ensure. I threw it in the trash can.
I definitely feel that medical education should focus on nutrition and education. I have mentioned to my NP that my progress to lowering my cholesterol was due to my shift to whole foods.
On another note I just retired and feel so much passion for your cause. This morning as I continued my research into finding local organizations focused on food advocacy I discovered the PCRM and then just received this email ( a sign?) I’m still new at this whole food journey and the strong scientific evidence aside I instinctually know that this is the path my body needs. At retirement I knew I wanted to find a cause I am passionate about to contribute. I did not see any local advocacy groups (Berkeley, CA) on the PCRM website nor opportunities to volunteer on the FRN website. Any suggestions? I am also in a position to contribute financially and will seek out both organizations through my DAF.
Looking forward to hearing how I can help your cause.
My mother was hospitalized for a few days for breathing problems and was delighted to find tofu scramble on the menu. We both eat WFPB. She declared their tofu scramble was better than what we make at home. Kudos to that chef! (and the hospital)
Loma linda ca is the ONLY area in the US part of the Blue Zone where folks live longer and healthier! Hopefully their medical school is teaching nutrition to their med students! I am proud to say I am part of this area and raised our sons vegetarian with lots of fruits and vegetables and now a vegan. I know you, Ocean, push coffee!!!! Makes me sad – otherwise all good – now I’m going to sit down for breakfast with your Blueberry Chia Porridge by Ocean and a cup of Roma coffee – yum yum – keep up the good work – Marion Cooper
The last time my husband was in the hospital I commented to the hospitalist that there was nothing healthy on the hospital menu. He agreed with me. That was encouraging, as is the article you just sent!
CONGRATULATIONS !!!
Ocean your dad is SO PROUD of you!!
And I am so grateful. 🙏
Finally, in my lifetime 🥰
Medical facilities should only serve nutritious food. The biggest reason against ketogenic diets in hospitals is that their patients would get healthy quicker, leave & never come back. Bad for the bottom line…
It’s the law in California that hospitals have to offer vegan options. It is possible here (in CA) to eat healthy food while hospitalized.
As a licensed clinical nutritionist what I would love to see is the physician, who is- rightly so- primarily trained in pathologies, addressing illness/disease/trauma- to know when it’s appropriate to refer to a dietician/nutritionist. We spend years studying the physiology of nutrition, not just 40 hours, and we also study the counseling skills needed to encourage habit change, some of the hardest part to address clinically. Our work is often insurance-reimbursable (mine is) and there are gazillions of missed opportunities when physicians do not refer those with cardiometabolic issues (pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, elevated cholesterol and blood pressure), the conditions most directly influenced by diet, to a fully trained and skilled specialist (the nutritionist!)
At 79 years old I came to the realization that to be healthy I had to eat much better. I am now 82 and still working on eating right, but making good progress and although not to many of my loved ones have listened a few are making changes for the better in their lives too. Physicians learning the benefits of good nutrition will make great strides towards a healthier world.
For a greater hope, we need to look into our Creator’s Word. Revelation 21:3 & 4.
Thank you for your dedication.
A reminder, it is OK in most hospitals, for family to bring food, vitamins/supplements to a patient.
Ask first.
Sometimes nurses will make note of what’s brought in by family.
Bring nutrient dense, easy to digest, homemade comfort food, (soup is good), so they don’t have to eat empty notorious “hospital food”.
Also food grade aloe vera GEL(not juice) every day, is a noticeable relief to people who have had/ongoing antibiotics or chemotherapy. These are generally people who are ready for relief and will “try anything ” and then pleasantly surprised at the results.
It’s a hospital, not a prison, though sometimes families don’t know they
can contribute. Unfortunately this works both ways as the fast-food example described.
A very good start. We also need to put pressure on the media publishing food and recipes to include nutritional information for each recipe listed including percent of daily requirement per serving of total fat, sat fat,calories, dietary fiber, sugar, cholesterol, sodium and iron.
Canadian Living magazine recently dropped this feature from its published recipes which was potentially a very dangerous thing to do.I used those figures to help decide.what rrecipes to cook.
I have made “reply to” comments on several of the points made below by readers. Not one is visible or accessible. Could you please fix that?
I didn’t notice if the University of Colorado Medical School had joined. If not, is there a move to have them join in this progressive move toward better health?
It is my understanding that these pharmaceutical companies and their predecessors funded the original medical schools in the 1800’s. And their medicines were taught in these medical schools. The schools of chiropractic, were not funded by these drug makers as the chiro philosophy was toward being healthy and that the body could heal itself with proper care.
After having surgery that removed part of my bowel, I was fed Jell-o for breakfast, lunch and dinner followed by beef stew in gravy. I refused to eat the beef as I had been a vegetarian for 20 years. The nurse in charge told me that if I didn’t eat the stew I would not be allowed to go home as scheduled. So I carefully hid the stew in drawers, trash cans, boxes ….. anything I could find. When the nurse came back, she was very happy with me and said I can now go home as scheduled. After she left, I flushed the stew down the toilet. BTW, I haven’t eaten jello since and now I eat a wfpb diet. So yes, add the nutritional education to nursing schools as well.
Watch “The Foods That Built America” on History channel from the viewpoint of a vegetarian or vegan or WFPB eater. You will see, live and in color, the reasons that healthy food options are not front and center. You will begin to understand why health outcomes in this country currently are so bleak. You’ll begin to understand why these new weight loss drugs are putting fear into the shrinking bottom lines of junk food, drink, and alcohol manufacturers.
Ocean Robbins!
Congratulations! Great article. I just spent 9 days In Hosp/ rehab and food they offered disgusting -not food! I have eaten Wfpb the past 29 years! The rehab center accommodated my request for veg & fresh fruit, almond milk -properly prepared! Amazing to get on request. I was healthiest person in their facility! 87 years , biological age 75 and back to total restoration quickly after 1 horrible meal at local restaurant – sodium & msg! I knew better, did it anyway -never again! God bless you for carrying on this vip work and making progress-FINALLY! Exciting times to be living.
My PCP recognizes that diet is an important factor in overall health. I try to eat whole foods and plenty of fruits and vegetables. But I’m not always successful. When I talk about it he has nothing to say other than get more willpower. Recognizing that a whole food plant based diet is healthy is easy. Adopting it is another.
I hope if in the future I end up in a hospital I am hoping by then they have vegetarian food . The hospital food is not nutritious as of today and if people changed their diet they would live a lot longer.
THANK YOU for all you do. I am indebted to you and your father for supporting me and my family in our commitment to health through nutrition.
A brilliantly written summary of his personal experience and research, ‘Healthy at100’ is a key resource in this journey. Bless you and your family for your commitment to disseminating this essential message. ❤️🌟❤️
Always great information, Ocean! Love how our foundations are changing to the healthier side. Thanks for ALL you do and for spreading the word.
It’s a step in the right direction. 43 years ago, I was a newly graduated nurse working in the ICU, surrounded by ventilators and dying patients while doctors, nurses and supportive staff smoked cigarettes in the break room. That’s a true story. Thankfully smoking is now banned in most places. But we are now up against the same fight when it comes to food, nutrition and lifestyle.
I spent my career in crisis medicine. I saw the end of the road before I understood how any one got there. Now I write about what happens before the crisis with research-grounded prevention that honors current science and traditional practice.
I know the ways modern medicine saves lives. I also know the ways it doesn’t.
Somewhere along the way, we began to dismiss what humans have known for centuries: herbs are medicine. Whole food is medicine. Sleep is medicine, the sun is life-giving, and sometimes the best prescription for health is simply a long walk in nature.
Lasting health isn’t always found in a pill; it’s shaped by your daily habits. These practices work, and science is beginning to understand why.
My newsletter, Quiet Acts of Healing is built on this premise. Keep writing what you write, Ocean. It’s important work.
My husband was in rehab for two weeks after a factured hip. Although not quite vegan, he is a vegetarian. The hospital had a terrible menu and they started to give him Ensure protein drink which we stopped! I asked the medical director of rehab (who told us he was vegan) if he thought the food was nutritional. Right! I started to bring food to him but by then his digestion was a mess.
NYC Health + Hospitals Now Serving Culturally-Diverse Plant-Based Meals As Primary Dinner Option for Inpatients at All of Its 11 Public Hospitals
https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/pressrelease/nyc-health-hospitals-now-serving-plant-based-meals-as-primary-dinner-option-for-inpatients-at-all-of-its-11-public-hospitals/
In the’80’s my dad had a heart attack and went to Montifiore hospital. At the time, they served him steak! He started screaming “this is what put me here in the first place. How dare you serve me meat,”. I was there. He became vegan. Sadly once his wife retired, he started eating chicken. Yuck. Anyways, with Dr Ostfeld, Montifiore was one of the first hospitals offering vegan meals a few years later.
What about dr Klaper’s moving medicine forward? You do Not mention this at all. And dr Klaper was there for your dad in the late ‘80’s.
This is music to my ears! Over 40 years ago, I worked for some Vermont hospitals, and I brought up the pathetic food in the cafeteria to the then CEO and he blew me off. I later joined a cooperative adventure with that hospital and another one and worked in health, promotion and wellness promoting aerobic exercise, walking writing a Health column doing grocery store, promotions unhealthy, eating doing cooking demonstrations, healthy gift baskets and much much more even going into schools and creating programs to help kids have healthier snacks after school and fighting to get the candy bar machine out of one school in particular along with the nurse that was a long time ago and it’s about time the Medical Community opened that window big time what we ingest is a large piece of how our Health plays out over our lifetime. The science is there the proof is there thank you for all you have done to enlighten the world and increase the availability of sound nutritional information. I say this with gratitude.
Joseph Lister comes to mind. Apparently, when he suggested doctors wash & disinfect their hands when leaving the morgue before going into dealing with infants, they thought he was crazy.
It’s absolutely INSANE that nutrition isn’t the most bedrock foundation taught in medical school’s & hospitals, not just as treatment but as prevention!! What’s painfully worse is that it’s barely a consideration! It seems pathetic that the greater good for humanity & this planet take a back seat, is actually trampled by, big money lobbyists pushing their own agenda to feed the bottom line. No pun intended. Thank you FRN, PCRM, ACLM for being a resource of integrity & for all your CONTINUED incredible work toward changing this world for the betterment of all! 💚
YO CURSE MEDICINA Y ME RECIBI EN 1971 (UNA SEMANA DE NUTRICION), LUEGO POR VOLUNTAD propia , realice un curso de nutrición de 2 años Alimentación natural con la Dra Albertazzi en Bs As. luego de haber estudiado acupuntura , y note que me faltaba NUTRICION , me sirvió de mucho para mi, mi familia,mis pacientes, hoy sigo leyendo nutrición, y a veces noto mucha disociacion, entre lo que se dice y lo que se hace. Nutrición es el pilar de la vida, lo mismo que la actividad física, y hábitos saludables( que son importantes, pero no se enseñan, también es cierto, que muchas cosas tienen que venir de uno.
It is indeed the squeaky wheel! My sister and I spent several weeks taking turns bringing edible appropriate food to my mother in a nursing rehab facility when she was recovering from a cancer surgery. They had meds to swab her mouth before every meal due to the chemo sores and would then bring her chili or BBQ chicken and wonder why she could not eat it?!?!? Her roommate had diabetes and they would serve pancakes and waffles with syrup for breakfast! We brought breakfast and dinner on rotation every day, dad was in charge of lunch. The staff stayed clear of us, we were a force. (I had it out with the staff doctor when he failed to respond to an infection she developed and I reported the facility to the DPH and Medicare board.) But the nutrition was atrocious – their response was that they “had too many patients to accommodate everyone’s preferences”! Unbelieveable.
I agree. There is too much medling. Big pharma is in with insurance as well. The fact that CVS and Aetna are one big happy family is an example.
Excellent!! I support frn pcrm and eat whole food and try recipes to share with friends and neighbors
It is amazingly appalling the lack of awareness in hospital. My husband said he was a vegetarian so they sent him chicken broth and jello! The nurses took pity and gave him popsicles. He lost 17 pounds over the course of 3 weeks as breakfast was the only remotely safe meal of the day. That was in 2021. He is there again this weekend and it is marginally better. Yesterday I brought him fresh fruit and a salad, hidden in my big purse. He has no medical dietary restrictions. In his first 24 hours there he had nothing but 1 popsicle, some saltines with peanut butter that a nurse scrounged up and a cup of coffee that I brought. Outrageous.
It is amazingly appalling the lack of awareness in hospital. My husband said he was a vegetarian so they sent him chicken broth and jello! The nurses took pity and gave him popsicles. He lost 17 pounds over the course of 3 weeks as breakfast was the only remotely safe meal of the day. That was in 2021. He is there again this weekend and it is marginally better. Yesterday I brought him fresh fruit and a salad, hidden in my big purse. He has no medical dietary restrictions. In his first 24 hours there he had nothing but 1 popsicle, some saltines with peanut butter that a nurse scrounged up and a cup of coffee that I brought. Outrageous.
I was in the the hospital in January 2026 for 5 days. The food they offered was dismal. Eggs too rubbery; cold toast. Lunch and supper were a bit better, but not much. One of my friends would bring me a meal from outside the hospital every day so I could have a ‘nutritious meal’. I thanked him every day. I asked the hospital dietitian about the food. She quietly told me it could be better, and told my friend to keep bringing me outside meals.
Atrium may have taken McDonald’s out of the lobby BUT they have not adopted a healthy approach to nutrition. My husband has been in Atrium’s heart tower and was served hamburgers, fried chicken and bacon, all in one day! I was shocked that food service would offer him those choices, let alone serve them! But hospitals really are a business and if you are not sick they are not making money. Don’t believe me, look at the profits of “nonprofit” hospitals. You have to advocate for your health, you cannot trust hospitals and most doctors to do that. Educate yourself.
Hi everyone. Recently as a blood test showed I had borderline high cholesterol, my cardiologist (French) immediately prescribed statins. I said how about diet. He said no.
I left the statins in a drawer and followed a low cholesterol diet for 3 months. The next blood analysis showed an 18% lowering of LDL cholesterol. My GP who had also been sceptical said fine carry on. Hurray.
There is so much wrong with food in hospitals! My husband spent Saturday in the emergency room from 6am until 2am Sunday – he was fed a popsicle, a cup of coffee, some saltines with peanut butter, only because he complained loudly. And once admitted to a unit, as a vegetarian in the hospital his options are extremely limited. He basically gets to choose from 3 options repeatedly for lunch and dinner. Breakfast is his best meal. God bless those who are vegan or dairy/egg sensitive because his meals contain egg and cheese. I would be in trouble as I have peanut soy and gluten allergies. There was no medical reason he could not eat I might add. Good nutrition is key to healing! We’ve known this for a long time. I have many other horror stories from the past. Bless you for all the energy you put into this work!
My docs roll their eyes when I say food is my medicine not drugs. I don’t eat at at McDonalds any more. There’s an Italian takeout across the street if I need food.
Good article and something we all need to consider. Just like the medical community is waking up to this fact, regular people have been brainwashed into not eating properly. Maybe not knowing how to eat properly. Maybe they don’t have access to proper food that helps takes care of them. Our whole food and healthcare system is not set up to help everyone. It is just a money making machine set up for profits with a cursory amount care. It could be so much better. Our “leaders” don’t service enough of their constituents. This country needs a reset. This article is encouraging, but there is a lot to do to get us healthy.
My friend who had open heart surgery for a replacement aorta also had type 2 diabetes, , overweight was given hamburgers and bacon. Why is that happening when hospitals now offer Whole Foods plant based diets?
Hooray! Alas!! Great strides are being made in nutrition & food education for our doctors/educators & thus for all of humanity!!! I thank you , we all thank you for leading/assisting w/this monumental transformation in medical awareness & implementation of life saving nutritional education !!!!
I had prostate cancer proton treatment at Loma Linda Univesity in 2015 they stressed nutrition and exercise for 10 weeks and practiced what they preached now at age 76 still
Cancer free and on NO medications after being plant based
My question that was not mentioned in this article, is the pharmaceutical companies fund most of these medical schools. It would be against their bottom line for them to actually help make patients healthier by eating nutritious food. I love the trend you’re offering, but big Pharma is still in intertwined. What are your thoughts on this?
When you go to a doctor for a medical concern and the first thing they offer is a prescription, treating it as a cure-all, that’s a problem. Medication can be helpful when its truly needed, but the benefits of healthy nutrition, regular exercise, and other lifestyle changes should also be part of the conversation. In my experience, physical therapy helped reduce pain, improve mobility, and restore function, while a cortisone shot was suggested as the better option. Although treatments such as injections may have their place, conservative approaches that address strength, movement, and overall health can provide meaningful long-term benefits. Addressing the root causes of health issues – not just the symptoms – often leads to better long-term outcomes and a higher quality of life.
You’ve most certainly hit this out of the ball park FRN!!! You are SO very right. Many of our Health care professionals don’t understand the connection between food and health. It’s too easy to write a prescription for an often synthetic chemical when simple, unadulterated foods can be the easy and more holistic solution to the problem. When I was hospitalized for a genetic heart valve repair in 2021 I was automatically only allowed a “heart healthy” menu. Foods were laced with sugary sweetness and there was no such thing as plain yogurt or fermented anything. I wasn’t allowed eggs and there was a profound lack of fresh vegetables…never a salad which I faithfully eat a big one with about 20 ingredients EVERY SINGLE evening. My doctors never mentioned anything about food to me…ever! Just drugs. I was appalled!
Hospital food in Greenville, NC is largely comfort food. They do have sushi and yogurt though the yogurt is sweetened. Of course medical schools should include nutritional instruction.
Curious. I went back and reread the whole thing and found the word “shape” in only two places in the article.
Nutrition facts, very essential for good health 🙏
“Food is medicine, and let medicine be thy food,” Hippocrates famously said. Yet, sadly, nutrition receives limited attention in medical education. There seems to be a pill for every ill, with prescriptions more important than food advice. Patients rarely hear about foods that harm or heal.
My first lessons in nutrition came from my mom and dad—not medical school. There must be global change . Ocean’s Food Revolution is clearly making impact !
I think it’s very sad to even have to be happy about this decission, only made now in 2026 !
Bo de la Haye,
Amsterdam / Europe.
Hospital meals for patients around the world are, in many cases, neither sufficiently nutritious nor designed to support healing. Apart from basic requirements such as low-salt, diabetic, or sugar-free diets, meals are rarely truly personalized or individualized to meet a patient’s specific nutritional needs, medical condition, stage of recovery, or treatment plan. The expertise of doctors, dietitians, and nutritionists does not always appear to be adequately reflected in what ultimately reaches the patient’s plate.
What makes this contradiction even more striking is the presence of fast-food outlets and other outlets selling highly processed foods within the very hospitals that advocate health, wellness, and disease prevention. It sends a confusing message: while patients are being treated for illnesses that may be influenced by diet and lifestyle, the same institution may simultaneously make nutritionally poor food readily available. If food is an essential part of healing, perhaps the hospital meal should be viewed not merely as a service, but as an integral component of patient care.
Hey ocean a Robbins, I like the article, thank for considering me always.
I think this information should start with the nutritionist who are ignorant.
Try to make an appointment with a functional medicine doctor who can help you with your diet & nutritional supplements in place of drugs. Medicare covers my functional doctors, they are MD’s or DO’s. You may want to double check your insurance coverage first. Best of luck!
you get food benefits and buy Starbucks. Unbelievable..
I cannot imagine, as a 77 year old patient, that any of my doctors will listen to me about nutrition and I have tried. Even my kidney doctor rushed me out the door when I tried to share my diet plan that improved my condition.
what would you have done differently that is practical?
what is a example of healthy vending machine food
“Intentional” implies there is thought involved. I’m afraid it is just stupidity!
Lots of good info and the substance is valuable, but clearly written by AI. It’s getting so tiring to hear ChatGPT’s voice everywhere instead of authors’ voices. The cadence, the smooth phrasings, the clever tidy analogies, the use of the word “shape” repeatedly. Anyone who uses it for anything also recognizes its style. Please bring back your own voice.
When I see a ultra processed muffin and a can of soda given as the food to people coming out of anesthesia I wonder what healthy choices would be a good substitute. I wonder what foods were given before these things were so readily accepted.
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a couple of years ago. Changed my diet to low carb non -processed food and 2 months later I had no diabetes. The doctor was surprised when I said all I’d done was change my diet, as though he didn’t really think that would have worked. Now I don’t even want anything processed, I’ve retrained my mind it seems to crave healthy food.
I get surprised when people say they can only afford processed food, it’s way more expensive than buying veg, eggs, mushrooms. Water is free, I just squeeze a bit of lemon in for flavour occasionally.
I worked as an uber eats delivery driver for a few weeks this year in the UK and always delivered to poor areas where overweight people would answer the door to take the Mac Donald’s or similar fast food I handed over. For the cost they could have had a fabulous plant based meal with exotic mushrooms (or grass fed beef) in the time it took to order and deliver. It’s really not about cost but motivation, mindset and education.
Hi Cynthia, doctors who prioritize nutrition are now licensed in “functional medicine”. If you google it I m sure you’ll find someone or even a hospital department near you. There is also “lifestyle medicine” which includes things like acupuncture, massage therapy, homeopathy, etc. Best of luck to you on your health journey!
Dr. Scott Morris and the Church Health, Memphis Tennessee, have seriously promoted this philosophy and care model for almost 50years.
I have a few enlightening and hopeful experiences recently in the past few years, I have been in the hospital several times- Doctors Hospital and Sarasota Memorial, both in Sarasota Florida. They both have a vegan menu, vegetarian and heart healthy. I ate so well at Doctors Hospital it was awesome. I met the dietary manager and ended up with her giving me her personal number to text. I even took pictures of the food and showed my circle of vegan friends, I am whole food plant based and ethically vegan, I have multiple things going on and am very thin right now. None of them told me I should eat meat or animal products either! I don’t think that it is the same in the cafeteria. That is a problem and needs to change, No part of any hospital should have unhealthy food
I am disgusted by the lack of healthy options every time I am hospitalized. Sadly, I felt happy to get a syrupy fruit cup or a soggy canned vegetable as opposed to the greasy meat & gravy my roommates were shoveling in. At one Summa hospital a kind nurse whispered that she could order me something from the staff cafeteria which had a few vegan Indian meals for their doctors since there was nothing vegan on my menu. At a Cleve Clinic rehab hospital I sent so many notes explaining what plant based & whole food mean that the dietician finally came to my room & said that the other patients complained about her when she tried healthier options. When I worked at Akron Chldrns Hospital there was an annual nurse appreciation day where every obese employee rushed to grab the free ice cream bars, candy & soda. They also had free chair massage though few took advantage of it. I sometimes felt nauseous when I went in patients’ rooms because the food they were served looked & smelled so awful. Nursing homes are even worse-when I was in one of the nicer ones I was served tomato juice & tomato soup every day since they had no idea what else to make. After a month of that I came home with gout (which they denied). At another facility the dietician came to my room & outright said they could not/would not meet my dietary needs & then asked me “what are you going to do about it?” & that I must bring a protein powder. She also tried to tell me that beans & grains must be combined at every meal, so I told her that I understood the concept but that idea had been scientifically disproven some 30 yrs ago (I figured that was mind blowing enough for one day, so I did not educate her on how our body can convert non essential amino acids!) I now know to take with me (or have someone drop off) a head of garlic & some dried herbs for flavor, & gallons of distilled water since they only have tap. I also try to have some fact sheets to distribute since many aides & nurses over the years were interested & asking me how/what I eat & why, When one Iranian doctor asked me what the garlic was for by my bed, I told him it was to keep away the vampires who come at night, which he found hilarious. (unfortunately it didn’t work, they still woke me at 3 am daily for a blood draw). I can only imagine how horrible it is for people who are alone, don’t live near major hospital systems, & can’t advocate for themselves. I am fortunate to have family & friends to occasionally bring food when I am in a facility, & to cook for me at home, otherwise I’d be screwed. Yes, this needs to change!
Here in Ontario Canada, dieticians are required by law to follow the government food pyramid I found out. (It’s better than it used to be, but not ideal yet.)
I may have helped the food pyramid improve by talking to my politician who was interested in child nutrition and giving her resources like T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study book. Highly recommend talking to people. Love that you began the education process at your hospital.
Dr. Michael Klapper deserves honorable mention in this conversation!!! He’s been a whole food plant eater and doctor for at least 40 years. He is dedicating his whole life to teaching current med students on campuses and med schools by giving his talk on “what I wish I had learned in med school” and his program “moving medicine forward”. He lectures at every med school where the students will have him, all over USA and also internationally.
Amazing and truly valuable insight and information, thank you!!
In Australia, they’ve changed the vending machines junk foods into healthy foods and drinks in the hospital, we don’t have McDonald’s in our hospitals as far as I know but in the cafeteria areas, they still have a wide variety of unhealthy junk foods, so yes, I do appreciate the change to healthier options in the vending machines, better for everyone and that’s a start.
My experience of hospital food in four months admission was depressing and debilitating: vegan food was hard to get, fresh fruit a stranger, lack of taste was substituted by pour on sauces. Stodge replaced salad. I was an incentive to get out I guess! To avoid the frozen ready meals with no texture or embodied energy, not recovery mediums. They make pap as expectations and public food standards are low. Varies by hospital as Glasgow had fresh fruit on ward
I was recently in hospital (in Germany) for 4 days for observation. The food was, to put it mildly, uninspired. Breakfast and supper were almost identical: bread, cheese, ham/salami, butter. You could only tell the difference between the two by the white roll and jam at breakfast and the tomato or cucumber or half a pickled gherkin at supper. Lunch was of the meat and two vegetable variety. I had carrots and potatoes as the vegetables for three days running (good thing I really like carrots!) and meat/poultry every day. I once had a sweetened yoghurt. There was no fruit. I think they relied on visitors bringing that in.
I’m sure they could have produced much more interesting food with the budget at their disposal. Patients have to contribute 10€ a day towards their “keep”. I almost wanted to offer them my services as a consultant! (I’m a retired teacher.)
I think practical nutritional education should start at school, and not as an optional class.
If anyone has had success with obtaining better nutritional options in retirement communities including Independent Living, Assisted Living, Nursing Care, and Memory Care, I’d welcome details here on how this was achieved. I live in a CCRC and after 4 years have managed to get plant based bratwurst and bean burger on our menus now. Meats are creamed sauced to death; veg mostly fried then covered in cheese; soups cream based. Our 4 steamed vegetable options are the same 365X2/day.
Bingo.
The year I was in chemo (infusion clinic owned by that oncology practice) I began to understand the huge amounts of money in this business. Every empty chair in that huge clinic was like an empty seat on an airplane. Lost money. $$$$ thousands per hour.
Thank you, Janet, for your service on this committee. And the backgrounder on hospital food prep complications.
And the food served in CCRCs is everything but healthy and variety. I’ve been fighting this battle at mine for 4 years. Results? None. Same menus as created years ago, I’m told by older residents. Dietitionist cannot even get head of food services to put a leaf or a heart by the “healthy” things.
That’s why we need this shift in doctor’s education. So that in the future it is possible to get lifestyle advice from your doctor.
Yes!!! Most definitely organic plant based nutrition should be at the center of medical treatments.
Thank you for this long detailed article. And for your efforts in this arena.
Jan 2025 I had kidney stone surgery, where they drill a hole in your back; Wellstar North Fulton Hospital, Roswell, GA. I asked for whole food plant based meals. Huh? What? No clue. The head dietitian visited me. I finally got a plate of water mellon. The other provided meals over 3 days were about the same.
It’s not merely doctors who need “nutrition education” – dietitians and hospitals need it too. I’m sure the dietitian provided me food options that her kitchen stocked. Frightening.
It’s not uncommon to find some sort of fast food establishment in a medical building.or hospital. One of the largest companies you will find is Tim Horton’s. I had to have back surgery and in the hospital is a Tim Horton’s. Where after people who have needed medical tests done will go afterwards and purchase high caffeinated coffee drinks and high sugary doughnuts. There may be friends or family coming to visit someone in the hospital and then order that person something they want. Then again, hospital food in general especially for patients is not always the healthiest. I’ll admit that it’s easiest to eat what you are familiar with and one of those options I had when in hospital was meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy. On one hand they aren’t helping the patients with a meal that contains a lot of carbs and saturated fat. On the other hand, if a patient has had a surgical procedure, and it’s not heart related, they will allow the patients to choose what they want to eat from a menu. They normally have three options to choose from. I think the goal is to make certain that the patient is eating something rather then passing up a meal because its something that they may not eat and if they refuse a healthier choice, then the patient goes without eating. This would more then likely not go over well with the doctor and so although a healthier diet would be most beneficial for all patients, its also about them eating and most medical professionals will not be happy if a patient goes without eating. Granted, if the patient is a heart patient, the doctor may contact the dietary department letting them know that their patient must have heart healthy foods and cannot be given options that do not follow a cardiac diet. Despite the patient griping that there may not be enough salt for their food or they aren’t interested in consuming spinach, they will be given options but only those options that follow a cardiac diet. A good doctor will be certain that while in hospital that no one bring that patient anything from a fast food restaurant be it a restaurant in the hospital or off site. The doctors need the strict backing of those nurses who are working on cardiac floors where those patients are kept during their recovery from a cardiac procedure. Sadly, despite the doctor and discharge team explaining to the patient that they must stick to a strict cardiac diet, the patients are not watched once they leave the hospital. Its unfortunate that when doctors do pay close attention that the patients aren’t interested in keeping themselves healthy. Sadly some folks may have a cardiac event that takes their lives, but I’ve heard some say, I’m still going to eat what ever I want despite them being told that their past behaviors are what nearly killed them in the first place. Some will not change and they have said that they would rather die eating what they love to consume. In my own opinion I find this rather selfish as they are placing their wants above their needs and they aren’t thinking about all of their friends and loved ones who would like them to live a much longer and happier/healthier lifestyle. Friends/family and even spouses and children who do not want their mother or father to die leaving them without a parent. Even after loved ones have tried convincing that individual to please, stop eating the junk food, that patient is still choosing to eat whatever they want even though it may cause another cardiac event that may end up taking their life. We get one life and I’m legally blind and not familiar with how to cook a more plant based diet, but if I were to learn, it definitely would benefit my life. Sadly, trump has caused a lot of damage when it comes to food stamps but taking money away from folks like myself won’t help us to eat healthier. Fresh vegetables and fruits are not at all cheap. When you have only so much money your given each month, you need to purchase what you can afford and what will last you the entire month. Even low quality foods are expensive and if someone gets lets say only $158 per month to feed themselves, then they are limited as to what they can buy. You could spend that on one weeks worth of healthy food and you may eat healthy for that first week of the month, but what about the other three weeks or what if there is five weeks in that month? Even in the lobby of my docs building they have a cafe where you can purchase sugary drinks, caffeinated drinks, pastries, cookies, brownies etc. Even if the doctor talks about their patient’s diet and says they should be eating healthier, what does it say when they leave their docs office just to hit the lobby and say, lets grab a bottle of Starbucks coffee, or a sugary dirty soda. A dirty soda is when they add other sugary things like flavored cold foam or maybe a flavored syrup to their soda. Either way its loaded to the hilt with sugar. How is this helping the patient? This is a small cafe operated by one individual. Instead of selling high sugary drinks and high sugary food items, sell fresh items that would keep the patients healthier. Now, would the patients actually purchase the food or would they just choose to go elsewhere for their after doctors visit snack. If they do go elsewhere, then the cafe loses money and healthy food gets wasted. What do we do in these cases? The docs may want to encourage healthier eating, but the cafe owner or employee wants to make money instead of going out of business. Ok, so where is the happy medium in these cases? I’m sure that there are much healthier plant based desserts or snacks, but as someone who is legally blind, I am unaware of what these foods are or what types of foods are available publicly. I’d like to know what I can purchase for myself, but the question was about food establishments being in medical buildings and about hospital food. I hope I gave a good idea as to how most Americans may act but my concern is whether or not people would consider changing their lifestyle so that they can live longer and hopefully become healthier. Thanks for reading.
This is incredible news! Ocean, I can only imagine your joy in seeing your father’s lifetime of work finally starting to break through! What a legacy!
I’m working really hard to do my part. I started to make health changes a few years ago, but it was slow going and often got derailed. I’m the last year of my late husband’s life, he was in and out of the hospital and finally in hospice care at home. He had many health issues including an hereditary rare blood disorder which had caused a stroke years before. But good and lifestyle, I know, (and really suspected then) played a huge part in his early death.
We are lucky to have Seventh Day Adventist hospitals near us. He was in and out of Advent Health that year, and I had to eat at the hospital nearly every day. I was so lucky to be introduced to do many vegan and vegetarian options in the cafeteria and specialty cafes in the hospital. It was a small beginning for me.
When I discovered FRN about a year and a half ago, everything slowly stayed to change, and after this year’s FRN Summit, I made a complete commitment to changing my diet, which is now whole foods, plant based, vegetarian. I’ve lost over 30lbs since April and still going.
Thank you so much for your work and dedication, and for all the work of FRN. Thank you to your dad, John, for paving the way. Here’s many more exciting breakthroughs and accomplishments to come!
Explain please.
Medical education will have to be standardized with the truth. I have a cardiologist who says never touch eggs or cheese, but the vascular surgeon and acupuncturist say eggs are ok.
Good news about beginning to make progress. Medical education should focus on wellness and nutrition as well as lifestyle. Our hospital food experience has been SAD- the standard American diet pretty much. More whole-food plant based options definitely needed!
How do we gind a doctor wkho is trained in nitrician’? What type of doctor? Slternayive medicine? How do we find one in the area we live with out needing to reach to other ateas of the US. I live in Hawaii.
Str current phydicians going to be required to get 40 hours under their belts? As continuing education rrqiirements like other professions?
Hospitsl fds for ppstients & rmployees is very poor.
Hospital food is appaling, I don’t go to hospitals myself, but as a visitor to a sick friend,
Kimberly had breast cancer, I read the menu, Danish for breakfast! Bacon, etc, Just awful,
They gave her more and more chemo until she died, age 38,
I wrote the book, Keep Your Breasts! Preventing Breast Cancer the Natural Way which is recommended by your father, John.
I healed myself of breast and uterine cancer after being diagnosed in December 1990,
No recurrence ever,
This shocked Dr, Susan Love. Because medical treatment only at best results in “remission,” Meaniing it usually comes back,
That’s why I have never had any recurrence.
Thankful this is finally being addressed. My husband was admitted to the hospital in Decline 2025 and diagnosis high blood pressure and high blood sugar and they said he was diabetic. They fed him fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and pancakes and biscuits and gravy amoung other things. When they tested hid blood sugar they acted like they were surprised it was very high. I am looking at them and wondering what they expected. Most everything is carb and sugar laden and they just give insulin to lower numbers. Since going home and eating correctly he has lost 35 pounds, off blood pressure meds and has normal blood sugar. He did a complete overhaul and cleaned up his diet and the results can’t be argued with.
It’s about time!
Congratulations for your dedicated efforts to make medical schools aware of the critical importance of having nutrition as a part of doctor and patient education and conversation.
Great tips about how to initiate a nutrition conversation with our own doctor.
I will make copies of your great messages to share with my own doctors and specialists.
Hoping for a successful nutrition journey for all medical schools to join in order to make American people healthy again.
I have a friend with CHF. She asked her cardiologist for a referal to the Dr Dean Ornish program. He told her no, I practice Western Medicine and how it was all a con. She is looking for a new Cardiologist
Ocean you can not imagine how grateful we regular humans are for your service and knowledge you share with us. Thank you, please keep it up!
This is the first Grand step of many in the correct direction of Healthcare. Thank you…
I have been n the hospital twice. I was still eating animal products at the time. Both hospitals served balanced meals. No fast food. My doctors office use to have a Coke Machine. It is no longer there. Some of the poorest quality meals is what they serve for breakfast at our Senior Centers. And they have a nutritionist and dietician who approve the menu.
I agree and i support the FRN i am now enrolled in the NLCC and am enjoying it so far just finished the orintation module and looking forward to going forward, just was a guest at the Plant Party 2026 in vegas this weekend virtually i purchase the FRN empowerment package every year since 2017 and I also donate to the neal barnard PCRM I’m doing what I can.
I forgot the other story! When I was in the cardiac wing for 3 nights, testing an Afib drug to see if it would work for me, the food was abysmal. I recall ordering the only dish that was remotely close (not) to what I eat. A salmon pasta. It was so close to inedible because of the huge amount of salt in it!!
This always baffles me too. The local Relay for Life Team hosted a dine to donate at a steak house recently. I (very politely) commented on their Facebook post that it seemed a bit strange to host a benefit for cancer at a restaurant that primarily serves foods that cause cancer. The organizers apply that it was a good thing because the restaurant was donating money. I continue to try to educate them again in a polite way, but it just went right over their heads.
We are incredibly grateful Ocean, for your tireless devotion to whole food, plant-based nutrition education, research and advocacy! It is my understanding that there’s potential, in 2027, for individuals with Lifestyle Medicine certification to bill Medicare for patient Lifestyle Coaching. It will follow the current model of billing for smoking cessation. Since billing Medicare for patient Lifestyle Coaching will be a source of revenue for physicians/providers, there is potential for a significant increase in whole food, plant-based nutrition awareness, protocols and treatment plans.
In 2020, I gained a new cardiologist. I asked him how much wine was safe to drink, 1 glass, “yes”, he said. 2, I asked, “sure!” he said. Then, in an email regarding my genetically high cholesterol, I told his assistant that I have mostly a plant-based diet, which should help, no? Her response, “We typically find that that sort of diet is not sustainable.” I was aghast. The glaringly obvious elephant in the room was alive and well.
I was hospitalized for pneumonia several years ago. The only floor they had a bed on was the cardiac floor. I had a pounding headache and asked for some coffee hoping the caffeine would help. They wouldn’t give me any coffee because I was on a cardiac floor. Alright, understandable. But when they served my dinner it was a fatty cut of roast beef, mashed potatoes covered in butter, a few carrot coins smothered in butter, and a roll with butter. I didn’t have an appetite anyway so it didn’t matter that I was certainly not going to eat any of that stuff, but I couldn’t believe a hospital that so concerned about giving a patient caffeine would serve that kind of meal to a supposed cardiac patient. Unfortunately the hospital in our city still serves that kind of food to patients. After a couple days when I did get my appetite back and I asked the person in dietary about a vegan meal option they asked me if I wanted chicken. When I asked about non-dairy milk she laughed and said well what other kind of milk is there? The business of hospitals is to keep a steady flow of customers, sick care vs health care. I’m glad the education is getting better at least for doctors, hopefully it will trickle to other hospital staff as well.
Good for you! You most definitely saved your father from worse harm in the hospital.
I’m on a local Adventist hospital patient committee, and we just had a program on their food services. Having to cook for an incredibly wide variety of special diets is extremely complicated! Menus are done by computer software, as no human could calculate all the necessary parameters for each permutation. It was eye-opening. They always have vegan options though. Unfortunately they offer soft drinks on request, as patients demanded them. They’re competing with another hospital, so the customer ratings are sacrosanct.
My husband and I began eating Vegan in 1984. We have seen the benefits of doing so through out the years. I think I have been to a hospital twice for no more than 2-3 days. I do think Medical ED should
definitely focus VERY heavily on nutrition and prevention. I will be glad to see that comes into manifestation ASAP.
This reminded me of a beach scene I saw recently. all these well-meaning people holding a “sausage sizzle” to raise money for the heart foundation.
I have always been on a healthy diet since I took a nutrition class in College and I was appalled that my first doctor as an adult was this heavy-set older Guy who had shortness of breath.
After I came back one evening to see my father, a diabetic, in a skilled nursing facility (for a broken hip-temporary stay) I found an empty container of ice cream on his dinner tray. I flipped out approaching every person of authority for his care. His Dr. advised me they had put him on insulin to combat the increase in blood sugar. I made the director of food services give me a menu and delivery schedule of every single meal and/or snack. I home cooked every every meal I felt unheathy and delivered them greeting the food delivery with a loud ‘take that away. he’s diabetic and I brought his food-stuff that will NOT put him in a diabetic coma!’ I made the Dr. give me a list of blood counts and the time they were taken. He was off insulin and back to his minimum dose pill in less than a week. It’s the squeeky wheel!!!
Great job and keep it going! I was surprised when I had a heart attack for new years eve, and even more surprised when the meal order was overruled for not being cardiac friendly so substitutions were made. At least in nearby Denver Colorado the messages are getting thru. 68 and better than ever thanks to folks like you Ocean.
I was in the hospital briefly and asked for a gluten free vegan meal and was given a plain bagel. They couldn’t figure out what to provide so decided they wouldn’t feed me. I had to order from a juice and salad place and uber eats it to my room.
Bravo! Excellent article. I totally agree. Mostly by intuition I made life style decisions that I believe are the reason I am alive today. My genetic history is not good. Dad died from pancreatic cancer when he was 60. Mom died in a long exploratory surgery five years later when they found pancreatic cancer. And since the universe wanted to be sure I got the message, my ex-husband died of pancreatic cancer at 52. But I’m almost 79. I’ve been vegetarian or pescatarian for over 25 years. Only last month did I finally have the opportunity to tell a young physician my story. Almost everything he started to recommend I’m already doing. I’m certainly not perfect in my food choices but I’m convinced giving up meat, and exercising regularly have enabled me to be here today. I might die tomorrow but I feel like I’ve already beaten the odds. Thank you for your work and writing this article.
You might find a functional medicine physician as most allopathic physicians prescribe medications without addressing underlying factors.
Absolutely medical education must put more focus and attention on nutrition and prevention! Requiring doctors already practicing to attend training in diet and nutrition as part of ongoing education is also vital!
I’m glad things are shifting because Doctors should be able, in my opinion, to give options for getting well or being healthy other than prescriptions or pretending food, sugar, etc doesn’t matter. I’ve found them very closed minded about even discussing nutrition, supplements, etc almost as it it’s a bunch of hooey.
Robert F Kennedy Jr. has been committed for decades to confronting chronic disease in the USA, and as HHS Secretary he hit the deck running — researching and eliminating/reducing food dyes, fluoride, GRAS chemicals, processed food, focusing on relative absence of nutrition education in med schools, mandating that schools and hospitals serve real food. He has identified thousands of chemicals in food sold in the USA which are absent in the same products sold in Europe where our chemicals are banned…..to name a few revolutionary changes. Due to his career as an environmental attorney and his upbringing in a political family he felt uniquely qualified to confront factors contributing to the USA being the sickest industrialized country on the planet. He is devoted to helping our country mend nutritionally, medically, and spiritually. So, in answer to your comment, something has been done — and we must learn from him and invest in health daily.
I am a 5 year breast cancer survivor. I still have to do mammograms once a year in October. October is breast cancer month so upon completion of my test the hospital gives out a milk chocolate candy bars shaped like the breast cancer ribbon. Both milk products and sugar are known cancer causes! Ironic yes or intentional?
This was a very emotional read. I welled up with tears envisioning a future of healthy, joyful people. Thank you for your continued dedication 🤍
A friend awaiting open heart surg. a few yrs. ago at 1 of the 2 acute care hospitals in Victoria, BC was served very unhealthy food both pre and post: white bread, processed cheese, little in the way of fresh fruit or veggies or salads. Like what you’ve described happening in US med. schools, Can. ones are similar in their lack of attention to what supports health. It’s an e.g. of how no one seems to connect the dots between improved outcomes and priority given to budget funding.
Success in sickness industry leads to less business.
In most industries it’s called conflict of interests.
We need systems that prioritize health over money.
Excellent article!
My daughter lives far from me for grad school. She is nearly vegan and ended up staying at the emergency room overnight and well into the next day after contracting Covid (which she and they didn’t know she had, they tested for it as an afterthought in the morning). At first, they only offered not-healthy snacks. They didn’t offer a meal until lunch the next day, and even though she had told them she was vegetarian three times, they gave her a meal with meat. She ate the side of zucchini (and it was the best she ever had because she was so hungry). Due to her chronic conditions (orthostatic tachycardia) she doesn’t do well not eating something substantial (sugar makes it worse) and could barely make it home when they finally released her. Also she could never sleep because of all the noises and sporadic interruptions. It’s been a year and, while she feels better, with the long Covid, her vision still hasn’t fully recovered. How much was it made worse by the food?
Hi Maritza
In British Columbia Canada, hospitals within the Vancouver Coastal Health System have involved chefs who worked at high end restaurants to offer culturally relevant plant based menus to inpatients. These chefs are so excited to be developing healthy, tasty meals for patients in these large hospitals. The story of how this progress was made might make a good additional story for readers!
Trying to get plant-based diet when I was the hospital and in inpatient rehab in Aug, Sept, January, and February, was quite a challenge. (They did find and use a plant-based formula when I was on an NG tube, but my options were pretty limited once I was off the NG tube.) Steamed broccoli, steamed carrots, and a baked potato were about my only options. Every day.
This needs to extend to Skilled nursing facilities, too. I spent 6 1/2 weeks in one last fall on IV antibiotics, and my options were slim indeed. I had direct access to the cooks and the kitchen, and they really did do their best, but they could only fix what they had on hand. I ate a lot of tofu, steamed cabbage, and baked potatoes. They occasionally had sweet potatoes, but they were so dry they weren’t very palatable.
In all honesty, there were some other plant-based options, but they were spicy and / or contained other ingredients I didn’t want in my body.
I don’t need or want gourmet food. I wanted simple vegetables without a lot of additives. They really did do their best . . . but you can’t cook what you don’t have. And I don’t think any of the other residents were interested in my type of diet. And the cooks will fix what the residents will eat . . . so it isn’t entirely their fault.
I’ve been a RN for 52 years and have been noticing this unhealthy trend in every hospital I’ve worked at. Why oh why would hospitals serve this garbage to patients under their care. It’s been mind boggling for me. I’ve only found the Adventist hospitals to at least have decent quality food options. All others…. garbage. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this trend being addressed and changed. We are what we eat. This is music to my soul!
I wonder who is going to provide the nutrition curriculum for the medical schools? The Dairy Council? Cattlemen’s Association? The same group that created the new Dietary Guidelines? (With Butter and Steak and Poultry high on the Pyramid) I’m excited about the idea of future doctors getting nutrition education but concerned that it won’t be centered around the health promoting Whole Food PLANT BASED diet and lifestyle.
This is excellent news! Thank you to all for making this happen, with anticipation of increasing action!
Two weeks ago I was in the ER with my dad. I normally plan ahead if away from home to bring healthy snacks, but not in this case with an ER visit. How terribly disappointing that the vending machines in the ER had not a single option for healthy snack. Surely they could include something as simple as raisins?! This serves as encouragement to me to make a call to request this.
Thanks again!
The citizens of our country are sick and tired (often literally) of our medical system and how ignorant MDs are of the causes of diseases and the natural cures for them. Years ago, when my mom had colon cancer, I took her to see her oncologist. In the waiting room were baskets of cookies and candy! I asked her oncologist if she knew that cancer is fed by sugar (which I had learned from my Chiropractor ex-husband years earlier) and she said she had never heard of this before! Wow! Many doctors still don’t understand this. My ex would put his patients with cancer on a sugar free, vegi and natural fat (like coconut oil) diet. After 2 weeks of drinking only fresh vegi juice, their cancer would often disappear. If they drank fruit juice, it would redevelop!
I look forward to the day when Chinese, Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and energy healing are main stream and broadly accepted!
Several years ago, I was hospitalized for almost two weeks in a hospital in Vancouver, Washington. The dietary department was awful. They could not figure out how to provide meals for a vegan with a gluten-intolerance. They kept wanting to add ‘flavor packets’ to my meals (they contained lots of sugar) because they said I wasn’t getting enough calories! They ultimately requested that my family bring food. My awesome husband stopped each day at Cafe Yumm and brought me a veggie bowl so I would have at least one decent meal. It was truly an awful experience!
I was so excited to read of this wonderful progress. Well done Ocean Robbins!
I stoped diarrhea when after the pandemia I went back to my glass of water with one spoon of Apple cider vinegar and one spoon of honey three times a day after meals
I have learned the hard way over the last year the huge importance of food as medicine for curing, strengthening, and prevention. We are beginning to start in the right direction to heal our nation. Save our children from a horrible fate.
I think this push is exceptional. I also think, even more importantly actually, is that people STOP asking this doctors for nutritional advice! That’s like asking your plumber to fix your roof. It’s extremely naive. A non doctor does not need a doctor to learn about what the body needs to be healthy. This is accessible to any human. In fact any human who has not sought the information already…is asking for disease and medications, So I guess that’s how they want to live, and maybe even die. The FIRST goal should be for the public to know, Your doctor has likely ZERO training and even 40 hours is piddling. I have hundreds of hours and no certificate. Because I do this crazy thing!….I read. I have passed on to countless people nutrition facts.org. How many sign up for the newsletters is probably ..1? UNTIL they have a heart attack, SOME of them THEN get a TAD curious. But still will eat eggs because their doctor told them too. (Can you hear my eyes rolling) So not my problem. But I am very very very tired of telling someone, ‘soy is good for you’ and their response being “i’ll ask my doctor”. Um…sure and then ask your car repair guy while you’re at it. Makes as much sense. Medicine is EMERGENCY MEDICINE. Thats where they excel. UNDERSTAND what it is!! Don’t expect doctors (in the office or online!!) or the government to teach you about food. Frankly that is just …well, so naive it’s bordering on ignorant. And maybe not bordering.
Yes, your mention of HHS is noted but these fundamental improvements all stands on the shoulders of Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy jr. Mainstream media takes every opportunity to slander him, sighting issues that in no way reflect his HUGE efforts that have virtually transformed HHS. Again, I appreciate your mention of HHS but the single paragraph is insufficient as you gave an equal paragraph to the president of the AMA – an organization which holds considerable responsibility for the horrific position our mainstream medical community is currently in. Their capture by the pharmaceutical industry allowed the American people to be the sickest country compared to nations of similar socioeconomic positions.
Kennedy went a step further by negotiating with the medical licensing exam developers to insure that 17% of the questions to pass the licensing exam will include questions about nutrition. If medical schools won’t require it – beyond shame on them, their students won’t pass the exam.
In almost every avenue of health, his innovative policies have revolutionized HHS. He hosts a weekly EAT REAL FOOD show where respected chefs show you how to prepare food that costs less than fast food – inexpensive and delicious with step by step videos. He has changed the nutritional requirements for the food in our public school, in our military bases as well as attempting to eliminate soda and candy for SNAP benefit recipients. The majority of Democratic states have failed to apply for the waiver because they’d rather prevent a Kennedy win than a win for their less fortunate children. Shame on all of them.
I am a Functional Nutrition Counselor. When my mother was admitted onto the oncology unit in the hospital, she was given gelatin laden with sugar and red dye. What is worse, when I told the staff to find something else to serve her, they had no idea what the problem was!
When I had a knee replacement I told them I was a plant based whole food eater, when the guy came from the cafeteria to get my order. He had no idea – sad.
Everything was sweet in the hospital: fruit juice boxes, jello, desserts and horrible main courses. Something needs to be done.
I saw your plea. I’m not a doctor, but I can suggest you seek out a holistic nutritionist for starters. Also remember certain medications cause side effects along the lines you mentioned. All things to look at to see what’s best at this time for your personal situation. The body wants to heal, at any age. Sometimes a change is needed.
Yeah, seriously reconsidering my love of FRN
After years of digestive issues, I reached a point where I had almost daily diarrhea.. The nurse practitioner I saw at the local gastro said when I told her , I had lost ten pounds “well I don’t what to do next.” She had been cautioning about not eating difficult to digest foods. So I left the office and started researching. At my next visit i said to her, I’m not having as much diarrhea anymore.I’ve been researching diets to heal my gut biome. She literally stared at me and did not answer. It was awkward. So i said I’m really learning how much my gut affects the rest of my health. Still no answer. After a bit more awkward silence , she said to me , you need to talk to a dietician.. Not in a helpful way , but more like I needed somebody to set me straight.
Obviously nurse practitioners in physicians assistance also need more training in nutrition.. Probably starting with any of those people who will be working for gastroenterologist.
Hello Katherine, I’m so sorry you are dealing with the stress of this illness! An anti-inflammatory diet may very well help you immensely. Here’s an article of ours that may be a great starting point for you–https://foodrevolution.org/blog/anti-inflammatory-diet/. Please let us know if you have any questions moving forward. –Ina, Food Revolution Network Team
I’m a disabled grandma this is at her wits end. I’m arthritis and mobility issues have taken over my body to the point in hardly am able to use my arms and leg. Medicare doctors just want me to keep taken prescription medications that have slowly making me bedding ridden. I hope you can help.
Thank you, Ocean, for your continuous research and pioneering the way of food to fuel our health. I appreciate an article to share with physicians. 🙂
Loved this!