Nutrition & Food Services

Philosophy

Food is Medicine.

Nutrition and Food Services aims to promote, protect and enhance health and healing through the food experience. Optimal nutrition is essential to maintaining and restoring good health, preventing and managing chronic diseases, including malnutrition. Food provides warmth, comfort and enjoyment, as well as nourishment. Each meal served is an opportunity to support healing, recovery and quality of life.

Guiding Principles

1. We support patient-centred care through offering a variety of high-quality, nutritious foods based on preferences and therapeutic needs.
2. We prepare food using recipes developed by our team with special effort to source ingredients locally where possible.
3. We ensure menus reflect Canada’s Dietary Guidelines/Canada’s Food Guide (2019) and diverse nutritional needs.
4. We encourage positive meal experiences that support health, recovery and quality of life.
5. We promote a food first approach to recognize the important role of food in health, recovery and quality of life.
6. We recognize food’s important role in celebration and tradition.
7. We believe familiar and culturally appropriate foods serve as comfort and nourishment.
8. We are committed to learning about traditional ingredients and methods of harvesting and preparing food for health of body, mind, spirit and the planet.
9. We aim to create supportive environments where the healthy choice is the easy choice.
10. We support seamless nutrition care across settings and services.