Investigation of the Volume of Food Waste in Qaem and Imam Reza Hospitals in Mashhad, Iran

Objective: Food waste is a progressive concern and is contributed to reduce energy and protein intake. The aim of this study is to investigate the amount of food waste in different wards of Qaem and Imam Reza hospitals of Mashhad. Design and subjects: This cross-sectional study was performed during one week in the Imam Reza and Qaem hospitals. The study population consisted  of 425 patients in some wards of two hospitals. We selected participants non-randomly from patients who are hospitalized in two hospitals. The rate of food waste was measured just in lunch meal by using the food residual observational check list. All statistical analyses were done through SPSS version 16. Descriptive statistic was used to define baseline characteristics. Independent sample T-test was used for comparison of food waste between main course and appetizer, crosstab and chi-square test for comparing the main course and appetizer waste based on sex, hospitals and wards and ANOVA used for comparison of age between different degrees of food waste. Results: In this study 13.9% of the patients left their food in plate entirely. Food wastage in appetizer was significantly higher than main course (P < 0.001). Also less patients in Qaem hospital than Imam Reza left all of their food (27.84 vs 22%) (p=0.003). Food wastage in the Heart ward was significantly higher than other wards (P=0.006). Conclusion: Food waste vary by the different hospitals and wards, so in order to decrease the food waste, serving meals based on the wards and patient requirements is a good solution.