Introduction:

studies about the Nutritional Transition in Spain (NTS) until the mid-20th century are based on direct, and heavily aggregated, consumption estimates, a methodology that obscures important aspects of this process.

Objective:

to show the new possibilities of study opened by the analysis of hospital diets and to suggest new NTS indicators based on the menus provided by the Hospital Provincial in Valencia (HPV) and the Hospital Sant Jaume in Olot (HSJO), between 1900 and 1936.

Method:

we have calculated food and nutrient consumption among patients and hospital staff as well as among different groups of the population, and compared the results thus obtained with those calculated for the whole of Spain in the previous article in this supplement.

Results:

hospital menus contributed to disseminate certain strategic foodstuffs for the NTS: milk, eggs and fresh meat first, and fish, vegetables and fruit later. The public dissemination of these foodstuffs was, however, uneven, and deficits in the intake of micro- and macro-nutrients intake decreased at different paces, according to social group.

Conclusions:

hospital diets confirm that nutrition in Spain improved in the decades that preceded the Civil War, as well as the pioneering role that sanitary institutions played in this process. The data also suggests that the process operated at different paces in the reduction of deficits in the intake of certain nutrients according to age groups and socio-economic status.

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