GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Corewell Health is trying to challenge the idea that hospital food is bland and boring.
The hospital system has partnered with Milford Spice Co., to create five sodium-free spice packets for use in all 21 care locations across the state.
"What we find in the hospital setting, is a lot of the patient food has to be very bland," said Mick Rickerd, corporate executive chef at Corewell Health. "We're not allowed to serve a lot of sodium, or there's a lot of diet restrictions around it, depending what your condition is. It's very important. So, we set out on this initiative to really figure out a way to add more flavor into our patient menu, to give patients more options to eat the way they do outside the hospital, but still fit within the healthy guidelines that we have to serve here."
The spice packets are available in the cafeteria or for in-room meals. Options include an Italian blend, a Thai blend, barbeque, Middle Eastern and a house blend.
The idea is for patients to be able to customize their meals while in the hospital.
Corewell Health has been working the past few years to offer foods that are whole, fresh and great tasting. Rickerd said they are following a "using food as medicine" approach to their meals.
"[Food] is the base for most diseases, and the healthier that we eat, the less frequently you're going to visit us," said Rickerd.
Milford Spice is a company based out of Troy, Michigan. Corewell Health is projected to purchase 750,000 spice packets this year.
Each spice packet is sodium-free and meets diet standards for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet and select renal diet standards.
"We actually have a goal to achieve of 25% of our hospital purchases from local, sustainable or diverse owned businesses," said Rickerd. "Milford Spice happens to fit two out of the three of those criteria."