From left, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., TGH president and CEO John Couris, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian and United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at the Thursday event. Photo by Michael Connor.
Tampa General Hospital president and CEO John Couris Thursday officially signed the Make Hospital Food Healthier Pledge.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Brooke Rollins, United States Department of Agriculture Secretary, attended a media event to mark the occasion at the institution’s Davis Islands campus.
According to theU.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the pledge “challenges hospitals to put nutrition at the center of care.” Health organizations are encouraged to create meal programs based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Suggestions include limiting ultra-processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages and “processed meats and foods high in added sugars, sodium and artificial additives.”
Couris explained at the event that the TGH has been implementing a healthy food initiative. The effort is a partnership with celebrity chefGeoffrey Zakarian.
“We were starting to think about how can we can change the food we serve our patients?,” he said. “We just needed to know how to do it. When I met Geoffrey, he knew exactly how to do it. For two and a half years, we went to work redesigning menus, rebuilding kitchens, training our staff and working and collaborating with our physicians.”
Fresh ingredients have been key to the process. Couris said that 25% of the food at TGH comes from local farmers. Additionally, menus have been reduced in size to help offset costs.
“The fact that we stand here as the first hospital to sign theMake Hospital Food Healthier Pledge is a real honor, not only to serve our community, but to be a role model for the rest of the country,” he added.“We stand ready, willing and able to help this administration push this initiative across this country from coast to coast.”
Zakarian explained at the Thursday gathering that meals are “transformative.” One of the main goals of the TGH effort was to create “single origin food that is bioavailable.”
He worked with Dr. Tanuja Sharma, TGH medical director of integrative medicine and arts, during the process.
The Department ofHealth and Human Services and Department of Agriculture have been collaborating on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Rollins said.
“If we really are going to reverse this just heartbreaking trend that’s been happening in our country for so long in terms of chronic disease and just the health of our people, if we’re really going to do that, the way to do it is through our farmers and ranchers and eating real food.”
Kennedy echoed the importance of healthy food access and local growers.
“The processed food industry controls what we eat,” he believes. “They centralize that control and they squeeze the money from both sides, from the farmers and from the consumers, and they give us low quality food and that is making us all sick.”
Kennedy argued that hospitals should not be serving patients pudding, Jell-O and other items that are ultra-processed or have high amounts of sugar.
“These are places where people come to get healthy and we were giving them stuff that is going to actually aggravate and amplify their chronic illnesses,” he said. “Dr. Oz and I gave a challenge in June to all of the hospitals in the country to sign a ‘make hospital meals healthy again pledge.’”
TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz currently serves as the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He assumed the position in 2025
Kennedy added that “we have a template here at Tampa General” for other medical centers. The organization is one of the largest hospital systems in the country. “We can say if they did it, you can do it.”
The Department ofHealth and Human Services and Department of Agriculture are working on healthy food initiatives for the military and schools as well.
