Hospital Food

[demiglace]

11 minutes ago, Anna N said:

This hospital has a virtual food circus and the food there is extremely good. It’s not cheap. The problem is that I can’t leave my room and the only way I can get food like that is if someone visits and I ask them  to go down there.   Which I have done on other occasions.  I quite enjoyed Timmys Thai soup on my last unfortunate encounter with this institution.  There is even a sushi bar down there much better than you find in supermarkets but not a real sushi bar of course.  

Oh that's good to hear. There is good food in the hosp. Bad news is some people can't get to it. Luckily you have family and friends at the ready. Feel better soon.

Edited August 18, 2019 by demiglace
cuz (log)

[Anna N]

 

 So here is Real Food!   Vietnamese fresh spring rolls with dipping sauce.

 

 

 Vietnamese beef noodle soup well dressed!  

 

And then should I get a little peckish later:

 

 

 So all of you who thought you might need to send me CARE packages —Stand down. We are good. @Kerry Beal saved another life. 

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Anna N
To use a better photo of the food hoard (log)

[Shelby]

Oh Anna, I'm so glad   Thanks @Kerry Beal you're awesome!!!!!!

Edited August 18, 2019 by Shelby (log)

[Anna N]

3 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Oh Anna, I'm so glad   Thanks @Kerry Beal you're awesome!!!!!!

 

But I shall continue to post my hospital meals for your edification and amusement. And who knows around every corner there is a surprise and perhaps there will be something that I just might want to eat. 

[Darienne]

8 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Oh Anna, I'm so glad   Thanks @Kerry Beal you're awesome!!!!!!

 

You speak the truth Shelby.  Kerry Beal is a treasure for sure. 

[Shelby]

6 minutes ago, Anna N said:

But I shall continue to post my hospital meals for your edification and amusement. And who knows around every corner there is a surprise and perhaps there will be something that I just might want to eat. 

I just hope that you can outta there asap--and eat those snacks at home!

[Anna N]

 You cannot just ask to be removed from  membership in their diners’ club. I tried that on another occasion thinking that we could save food that I was not going to eat.  That upsets the whole smooth  bureaucratic apple cart.  First I have to have a breakfast tray so at least I get a warm cup of something before family can arrive with real coffee. But you can’t apparently do that. The system has little flexibility. We have 457 patients therefore we will deliver 457 meals  three times each day. That number  of meals may fluctuate from day to day but not by very much. Even the new hospital has a wait time at certain periods for beds.

I am hoping my stay here will be brief enough that I will not develop too large a guilt complex about food that is not being eaten. I don’t think there’s much problem with that because it’s really quite awful. I’m guessing hundreds of meals are wasted every single day. 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Add this kind of misappropriation to that of uneaten school lunches and one would think/hope that someone would see opportunity here.

[demiglace]

12 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 You cannot just ask to be removed from  membership in their diners’ club. I tried that on another occasion thinking that we could save food that I was not going to eat.  That upsets the whole smooth  bureaucratic apple cart.  First I have to have a breakfast tray so at least I get a warm cup of something before family can arrive with real coffee. But you can’t apparently do that. The system has little flexibility. We have 457 patients therefore we will deliver 457 meals  three times each day. That number  of meals may fluctuate from day to day but not by very much. Even the new hospital has a wait time at certain periods for beds.

I am hoping my stay here will be brief enough that I will not develop too large a guilt complex about food that is not being eaten. I don’t think there’s much problem with that because it’s really quite awful. I’m guessing hundreds of meals are wasted every single day. 

Try not to feel too badly about the full trays. I've seen nurses going through a rack of uneaten trays (not touched) pulling out extras for people. I've also seen people cherry picking extra juices and cheese and crackers from the trays. A lot of it will be eaten. 

[Anna N]

 So dinner arrived almost before I was finished lunch at 4:45. That is certainly a long way from my usual routine. This was the most visually appealing entrée so far. 

 

 

There is the menu. I can almost see @rotuts eyes light up!   Turkey meatloaf. 

 

 

 Here is the tray. 

 

 

 And here is the entrée. You must agree that compared to all the other entrées you have seen this one is the most visually appealing. Nice colour, Reasonable plating for an institution. But I tasted the carrots. They could’ve been just about anything because they didn’t taste like carrots. And they had that very weird texture that frozen carrots always seem to get. And I why I never buy frozen peas and carrots. 

 

I tasted the mashed potatoes.  Without butter and salt as a bare minimum mashed potatoes are meh. 

 

I tasted the gravy. No. Actually I didn’t taste the gravy. It didn’t taste like turkey. Didn’t taste like any meat I’d recognize. I’m guessing gravy browning and corn starch played a leading part in its construction. 

 

 And as a major concession to @rotuts,  I even tasted the turkey meat loaf. It too didn’t taste like turkey.  My first impression was of salt but that couldn’t possibly be. I bet you wouldn’t find a grain of it anywhere in the hospital meals except contraband salt.  So I’m not quite sure what to tell you about this.   It wasn’t entirely unpleasant and I could see it appealing to some of our residents.   Perhaps one could make it edible with a little sriracha and had I not just eaten something far better I might’ve tried that.

 I don’t think it would pass muster as it is with anybody who likes turkey meatloaf.

 

 Again the egregious water. 

 

From this tray I rescued the apple juice  and the cookies.  I quite like plain tea biscuits.

 

 

[Anna N]

2 minutes ago, demiglace said:

Try not to feel too badly about the full trays. I've seen nurses going through a rack of uneaten trays (not touched) pulling out extras for people. I've also seen people cherry picking extra juices and cheese and crackers from the trays. A lot of it will be eaten. 

Thanks. I kind of figured that. Because last night I was really hungry and I mentioned that to one of my nurses and he offered to see what he could find in the fridge. But I knew very well it would be something that I had already turned down at lunch or dinner and I didn’t want him to have to go through that exercise so I could say no thank you to everything!

[Shelby]

Good grief.  I don't think that looks good at all.  

 

But, is that a real plate?  Not paper?  I've never seen that around here.  However, we also don't have to pay to watch tv.

[Smithy]

Your description of the gravy and the turkey meatloaf reminds me of the Nutri-matic Machine in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": after a careful bioanalysis of the person asking for a drink, it inevitably delivered something that was "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea".

[Anna N]

4 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Good grief.  I don't think that looks good at all.  

 

But, is that a real plate?  Not paper?  I've never seen that around here.  However, we also don't have to pay to watch tv.

 Yes that is a real plate!   I, too, was taken aback.  I think that they’re making a big deal of Sunday dinner!  In fact, that was my first instinct when I took the lid off before I read the menu. With my poor eyesight I thought, “Oh my goodness it’s a Sunday joint!”  Lamb? Roast Beef? I can be quite silly sometimes. 

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Anna N
Typos (log)

[Anna N]

2 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Your description of the gravy and the turkey meatloaf reminds me of the Nutri-matic Machine in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": after a careful bioanalysis of the person asking for a drink, it inevitably delivered something that was "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea".

Perfect!

[rotuts]

@Anna N

 

Turkey MeatLoaf !

 

w Gravy !

 

mashed potato !

 

Carrots !

 

wow !

 

things are beginning to look better !

 

at least on paper ! 

 

[ oddly , I would have liked to have a taste, for ref. purposes. ]

 

I don't  know what a social tea cookie is .

 

are there Anti-Social tea cookies 

 

N. of the Border ?

 

who knew .

 

Id ask for a Hot Fudge Sundae 

 

extra hot fudge.

 

just saying.

Edited August 18, 2019 by rotuts (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

31 minutes ago, demiglace said:

Try not to feel too badly about the full trays. I've seen nurses going through a rack of uneaten trays (not touched) pulling out extras for people. I've also seen people cherry picking extra juices and cheese and crackers from the trays. A lot of it will be eaten. 

Wow!   Always thought that once any product entered a oatient's room, it couldn't be re distributed.

[Kerry Beal]

 

 

Image copied from Twitter - "dinner at a London Hospital" A tuna sandwich and bunch of social tea packages.

 

Social teas are a bit like an arrowroot but less powdery. 

 

There are drawers full of these little packages in every hospital I work in - that and digestives and arrowroots. Occasionally makes my dinner. 

 

 

[Anna N]

49 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Wow!   Always thought that once any product entered a oatient's room, it couldn't be re distributed.

I will let @demiglace answer for her experience. But often trays are refused before they ever enter a patient’s room. They may have also sent up trays to people who have just been discharged either out the front door or out the backdoor. 

[Anna N]

 

More real food. A lovely evening snack. See, I’m not that hard to please!

[BeeZee]

Hmmm, out of curiousity, I wonder if you specified Kosher diet if the food would be any better, because it would likely come from an offsite facility. Of course, it would probably still lack salt, and you’d be denied a cheese snack!

[gfweb]

33 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 

More real food. A lovely evening snack. See, I’m not that hard to please!

 

 

The one in the center looks like a ........

Edited August 18, 2019 by gfweb (log)

[kayb]

13 hours ago, Anna N said:

Thanks for your good wishes! There are people on the floor ordering in pizza but I’m in isolation and the pizza delivery people don’t seem to think they want to mask and gown and glove just to deliver me a pizza!  Wusses. 

Hell's bells, let 'em take it to the nurses' station. Surely the nurses will bring it in for you.

13 hours ago, Anna N said:

 How awful would that be? They would’ve shipped me down to Sudbury. 

 

The link is broken so here is the first verse from Stomping Tom’s “Sudbury Saturday Night:

 

Da girls are out to Bingo and the boys are gettin' stinko,
And we think no more of Inco on a Sudbury Saturday night.
The glasses dey will tinkle when our eyes begin to twinkle,
And we'll think no more of Inco on a Sudbury Saturday night.

 

 

 

Stinko might be a fine alternative. Add that to the wish list for visitors.

9 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I opened this!   I thought there were bits of mould in it.  I don’t eat breakfast cereal. Never have. These things are a mystery to me so I had  to read menu to find out what it was that  I was not about to eat.

 

 

8 hours ago, Anna N said:

The cavalry is coming! The cavalry is coming! @Kerry Beal  to the rescue. 

 

Thank God for @Kerry Beal! I hope she brings a stockpile that can hold you until her next visit. 

 

I could have eaten the cereal, but that's about it. I would have been bribing the cleaning staff to make a Timmy's run for me. At this point, I'd be grateful for crackers and peanut butter.

 

I am pretty horrified at hospitals feeding people like this. It's been several years since I've been in one, and I'm blessed with a fair amount of family and friends to stand between me and starvation, but I've generally found at least ONE thing on my meal tray that wasn't abhorrent.

 

Hoping desperately that you improve VERY soon and can go home!

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by kayb (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Also interesting is the extent to which different diagnoses/treatments are proffered different menus.   i.e., in the same hospital I have been offered vastly different menus as a new mother, hip replacement and gastro patient.    Wine included on the first two, not on the latter.    In fact, no food for 6 days, no water, only iV for 6 days.   Not a happy camper.   But doubted i missed much.

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, BeeZee said:

Hmmm, out of curiousity, I wonder if you specified Kosher diet if the food would be any better, because it would likely come from an offsite facility. Of course, it would probably still lack salt, and you’d be denied a cheese snack!

 When @Kerry Beal visited today we discussed something along those lines.  Just for the sake of argument and not to offend anyone at all what would be best declaration you could make about your dietary needs. Nobody asks you about your dietary likes and dislikes! Nobody asks you if you keep kosher. Nobody asks you if you are vegan but I guess such people don’t need to be asked.  They make their preferences clear.   But on further thought it is not a matter of food preferences but of the taste or lack of it. I don’t think vegan or kosher or halal would fare any better.  We are a multi ethnic nation so I wonder how  our non-WASP hospital population does. I am suspecting it is far worse.  Oakville is largely an enclave of WASPS. I am guessing their families feed them while they are in hospital. And perhaps we should consider that as an option to solve the whole problem. There are countries I believe where the feeding of patients is not the responsibility of the hospital but of the family.  Now there is a thought!   In the back of my mind something is niggling  and suggesting that perhaps hospitals took over the feeding of patients to ensure that they had nutritious food which they were not getting it home. Nutritious food was at one time  considered vital  for recovery from an illness. 

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Anna N
Thought I needed to edit something but I think it’s fine so no changes (log)