UVM Medical Center Harvest Cafe
Reviews
My wife and I are from Canada, where you won't hear many positive things about healthcare in the US, but this is very impressive and is a model for many places throughout the world. The first thing to catch my eye as we walked through the cafeteria was the fair trade tea and coffee. Most of the millions of people who produce coffee, tea and chocolate in plantations around the Global South do so in ill-health from the toxic mix of poverty and pesticides, and here's a hospital in the US that's paying a premium so that the communities and environments of coffee, tea and cacao workers prevent, rather than cause, disease. We came in just after the fresh breakfast line shut down, and bought a wrapped egg-mcmuffin-style sandwich of local, free-range eggs in locally-baked whole grain bread with a veggie and bit of cheese to add heft and flavor. With coffee and tea, the bill came to five dollars. It's no wonder the students at the university trek over to this end of the campus to buy their meals. The taste was decent, but nothing to write home about, but the price, healthfulness and sustainability were just right. This good deal means that that the hospital sells enough meals to non-patient visitors (can you imagine a hospital cafeteria that actually attracts outsiders???) to cover any additional costs of the local and sustainable food. My e-book on Food for City Building (cheaper than breakfast for two here) argues that these kinds of win-win-win deals, --- good for people, the economy and environment -- are readily available in a well-designed food system, and I'm delighted to see this proven, in all places, by a US hospital.
