El Camino Hospital

Hospitals are the places we go to get healthy, so the food we eat while there should have a positive impact on our bodies. With this in mind, more than 700 hospital partners across the nation, including El Camino Hospital of Mountain View, Calif., teamed up with us to make healthier choices easier.

On October 6, 2012, El Camino Hospital joined our Hospital Healthier Food Initiative, partnering with us on our mission to create dramatic and expansive improvements in hospital nutrition. From committing to display only health-promoting food options in cafeteria and menu advertising, to removing all fryers and deep-fat fried products and placing healthier food options within five feet of the checkout, El Camino Hospital’s changes have the potential to reach many.

At the time of the commitment, El Camino Hospitals served approximately 20,000 inpatients and 3,200 employees every year, and the hospital system hoped to make a major impact!

“El Camino Hospital aims to make the healthy choice the easy choice for our employees, patients, and visitors. In addition to working toward our PHA commitment, we have implemented guidelines for beverages and prepackaged snacks offered by our cafeterias, vending machines, and gift shops. We have modified our environment by eliminating beverages with added sugar and only offering prepackaged snacks that are ‘smarter snacks.’ A smarter snack has ≤250 calories, ≤10 grams of fat, ≤3 grams of saturated fat, no trans fat, ≤230 milligrams of sodium, & ≤20 grams of sugar. Many have expressed that they enjoy having a greater variety of healthier options available, and appreciate that it is now easier to choose something healthier, especially when they are stressed or tired.

~ El Camino Hospital statement