Move underway to get Indigenous foods into London hospital cafeterias

A working group is looking to expand the menu options at London hospital cafeterias to include traditional Indigenous foods, a move that can help improve health outcomes for Indigenous people. 

"There is a range of cultural food available at hospitals but none are Indigenous," said Marley Fisher, a community dietitian at Chippewa of the Thames First Nation Health Centre. She's been part of a group gathering input from the Indigenous community about what food they'd like to see served in hospitals. 

For now, they plan to work with London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph's Health Care to add one traditional Indigenous food combo to the hospital cafeteria menus on June 21, which is Indigenous People's Day. 

Fisher said the one-day special menu offering could become a first step toward eventually expanding the Indigenous food options available at the hospitals' food retailers and in the food served to patients. 

"So far, it's just for this day but there may be other options going forward as well," she said. "It's a great opportunity to start getting those Indigenous foods into the hospital in one form or another.

"I think it will allow Indigenous patients and their families a food option that they've never had before in this setting, especially if they can't leave the hospital for the day." 

The idea is to create one meal combo that includes an entree, side dish or salad, and dessert. 

Fisher has shared the idea on social media, in part to gather feedback from the Indigenous community about what its members would like to see on a hospital menu. 

Some of the meal options they shared include: 

• Three sisters soup (a traditional soup made with corn, beans and squash).
• Fish, including salmon and pickerel.
• Wild rice. 
• Berries. 
• Cedar tea and strawberry drinks. 

Caroline Lidstone-Jones is CEO of the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council, an organization that supports the evolution of Indigenous primary health care across Ontario. 

She said adding Indigenous menu choices can help improve health outcomes for Indigenous people in hospitals, particularly if they've travelled from their home community to receive health care. 

"We really are trying to promote [traditional foods in health care settings] because it's what our own dietary needs were based on traditionally, not processed food,"  she said. "When you're in the hospital and you're being made to eat foods that you're not used to eating, that can lead to a disconnect between your care and who you are as an individual." 

Lidstone-Jones said she'd like to see the idea broadened so that patients receive information about traditional foods when they're sent home following a hospital stay. 

And while the June 21 special menu offerings are a good first start, Fisher said for the Indigenous food options to have any long-term health benefits, they would need to become part of the cafeteria menu every day and be added to the food options served to patients. 

"Some Indigenous people may not know of these foods or even tried them," she said.