Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Planetary Health Menu in a Canadian Hospital: An Experimental Study

With support from Nourish, the research team created a planetary health menu by replacing greenhouse gas emission-intensive dishes with novel, low-emission dishes at lunch and dinner times. The team compared the planetary health menu with the original hospital menu based on protein characteristics, nutritional adequacy, alignment with the planetary health diet, and environmental impacts. The planetary health menu was then offered hospital-wide, and evaluated based on service frequency, patient satisfaction, and food waste.

Findings show that plant-rich diets can be adapted to an inpatient health care setting to meet patient preferences and nutritional requirements while achieving considerable environmental benefits.