Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visits TGH

We'll see you in a bit. You know, U. S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Tampa today. He spent his day at Tampa General Hospital to try out their food and also to showcase the efforts by T. G. H. To get patients more nutritious options. Kennedy says he's on a mission right now to make hospital food healthy again by making food part of medicine. FOX 13's Brianna Ardando shows us how T. G. H. Is doing its part. Tampa General Hospital is actually the first hospital here in the country to sign onto this pledge. Today, R. F. K. Jr. Saw firsthand the changes that T. G. H. Is making to get more whole foods to patients, salads, steaks, chicken noodle soup. That's all on the menu at Tampa General Hospital. And we saw when we visited the kitchen today, the enthusiasm and, uh, you know, the, uh, just the happiness. Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And U. S. D. A. Secretary Brooke Rollins tried the hospital food for themselves. They are here to kick off their make hospital food healthy again. Pledge T. G. H. Is the first hospital to sign on. I'm happy to report to all of you that 25% of the food that we serve our patients at Tampa General Hospital comes from a local farmers. Secretary Kennedy made changes to the food pyramid guidelines, and he says it prioritizes real food. And now he wants schools, military bases and hospitals to do the same. But one of the biggest, um, craziest things was the hospitals because these are places where people come to get healthy and we were giving them stuff that is actually aggravate and amplify their chronic illnesses. T. G. H. Says revamping their menu with Chef Jeffrey Zakarian wasn't cheap, so we limited the menu. We doubled down on the quality of the food, and we've seen somewhere roughly of a 5 to 7% increase in our expense overall for food for acquisition for food purchasing. Um, that's something that we can absorb. They launched the new options last October. We're actually working with vendors now to say, Here is the 400 ingredients I want you to provide to these hospitals. We're gonna do this in the country. Can you bring your price down to help us out as a partner? And every one of them has said yes. T. G. H. And U. S. F. Health are planning to track and research how these changes to hospital food impact patient health. I think there are some outcomes we would like to measure in the long term. Right now, we have a lot of anecdotal evidence of how it's made the patient experience better for our patients. T. G. H. Says that it's new menu aligns with the standards that are in this pledge, like no added sweeteners, no processed foods and more of a focus on whole foods. Reporting in Tampa, Briana Arredondo, Fox 13 News.