Evaluation of the Balanced Menus Challenge: a healthy food and sustainability programme in hospitals in Maryland.

Objective: The Balanced Menus Challenge (BMC) is a national effort to bring the healthiest, most sustainably produced meat available into health-care settings to preserve antibiotic effectiveness and promote good nutrition. The present study evaluated the outcomes of the BMC in the Maryland/Washington, DC region.

Design: The BMC is a cost-effective programme whereby participating hospitals reduce meat purchases by 20 % of their budget, then invest the savings into purchasing sustainably produced meat.

Recovery of Gram-negative bacilli in stored endotracheal aspirates.

This study assessed the recovery rates of Gram-negative bacilli from stored endotracheal aspirates frozen with and without glycerol. Samples frozen with glycerol showed a significant difference in isolate recovery, 89.7% versus 69.