Healthy Food Program

Healthy Food Program

The way our food is produced, distributed and consumed has significant impacts on the health of the environment, communities and individuals. Unsustainable agricultural practices contribute to air, water and soil pollution, climate change, and a loss of biodiversity. Producing food ideal for shipping long distances rather than immediate consumption may impact the nutrient density of the foods we eat as well as further contribute to environmental and public health degradation from carbon emissions. 

Oregon PSR’s Healthy Food Program brings an environmental and public health perspective to mobilizing support for sustainable food productions practices and systems.   The program recognizes and engages two primary drivers of change:  market demand generated by institutional food buyers and health professional advocacy for organizational and public policies that support healthy and sustainable food systems. 

Program Initiatives:

• Oregon Healthy Food in Health Care Project: Providing educational opportunities, resources and support for healthcare foodservice departments at Oregon hospitals.
• Oregon Institutional Food Purchasing Project: Providing training and technical assistance to institutional food buyers to increase their knowledge and purchasing of Oregon grown and produced specialty crops (fruits, vegetables and tree nuts).
• Oregon Food Matters Project: Providing educational and training opportunities as well as advocacy engagement for health practitioners interested in supporting greater public understanding and effective policy solutions to sustainable food system issues.

To learn more and become involved with Oregon PSR’s Healthy Food Program, please contact:

• Emma Sirois, Healthy Food Program Director, at emma@oregonpsr.org  or  503-780-9859      
• Gretchen Miller, Healthy Food Program Coordinator, at gretchen@oregonpsr.org  or 503-475-6256.

 
Key Partner

About Health Care Without Harm

Just as the Hippocratic Oath promises to, "first, do no harm," health care providers have a responsibility to eliminate practices that harm people and the environment.  Together with their partners around the world, HCWH shares a Vision of a health care sector that does no harm, and instead promotes the health of people and the environment.  The mission of Health Care Without Harm is to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment.

Since 1996 HCWH has worked with their partners to implement ecologically sound and healthy alternatives to health care practices that pollute the environment and contribute to disease.  The huge scale of the health care sector worldwide means that unhealthy practices — such as poor waste management, use of toxic chemicals, unhealthy food choices and reliance on polluting technologies — have a major negative impact on the health of humans and the environment.  The good news is that the health care sector can play a leading role in solving these problems. Due to its massive buying power, and its mission-driven interest in preventing disease, the health care sector can help shift the entire economy toward sustainable, safer products and practices.

Program Funding and Support

The work done by the Healthy Food Program at Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility would not be possible without the generous support from our current and past funders and supporting organizations.

• Special thanks to current funders:  Health Care Without Harm and Oregon Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Program
• Special thanks to past supporters: Multnomah County Health Department/CDC Communities Putting Prevention to Work, and Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit
• Special thanks to the Program Advisory Team and its current members:  Kaiser Permanente, Oregon Health & Science University, and Oregon Tilth, a nonprofit research and education membership organization dedicated to biologically sound and socially equitable agriculture.